unremarkable daughters
something new! a scrapped snippet from what Will Be A Book
A matter of years ago i started toying with fiction for the first time as a means of unraveling the odd, swift swirls of lifetimes i’d already lived. i had brief dreams of being a novelist, before getting all sorts of cynical remembering past experiences of jumping into an industry and finding out that what i thought was a lake was actually full of hot lava.
basically, i do not care for Industries, and i can physically no longer aspire to be part of any of them,
but i’m currently in Prime Writing Retreat Territory and felt called to reunite with my abandoned characters, revisit their backstories, shake my head at my wildly ambitious storyboard which now looks more like a damn trilogy than a debut novel (I had just read Ntozake Shange’s Some Sing, Some Cry and considered no bounds for my timeline).
returning to this world again feels creative in a more expansive sense than when i was first writing ~ less about processing my trauma and more about playing in my experiential playground. its been fun to see what i was into at the time, how weird i got with structure ~ shifting narratives and tenses, trying out different ways to do dialogue and casting birth charts to incorporate each person’s compatibilities, tensions and divine magic. i have a character who writes in poems, another through diary entries, and i’m grateful that i had taken this free-writing opportunity to explore many avenues, definitely inspired by the varied genres of Akwaeke Emezi. and aforementioned Ntozoke Shange, of course, experimental queen. and Alice Walker, NK Jemisin, I was reading them all at the time of this worldbuilding, back in our collective early ’20s.
I’m thinking that quarantining (if you actually did so) revealed if you had worlds to build/to visit/to explore/to find living within you, the spirits, and the collective (un)conscious you have access to, or if the totality of your world, or at least the totality of the world you want(ed), lay with others, on this plane, in the social order you’re familiar with
and i think the answer to that has a strong impact on how you relate to the time. and on how you were changed by that time.
i read so much between 2020 and 2022, it was outstanding. my inner child was over the moon. and, naturally, i also wrote. a fair bit of that lives at the beginning of this substack’s archive. other stuff, like my attempts at fiction, i kept to myself. in part because it was silly! there was also profundity of course, and so much more now to infuse after all this time. but some of it, as i’m displaying below, was a bit silly, which can be difficult for me as a virgo mercury. i remember being in the 8th grade and submitting a poem on the experience of having a crush, and when my teacher asked me to share it aloud for a school-wide #poetryslam, i REFUSED because i didn’t want to be on a stage talking about silly crushes! i wanted any writing i shared to be respected 😤
but now because I myself respect the creative process, and my deep-set faith that whatever is in the hundred-odd pages i have so far to work with will be transmuted into something special ~ regardless, perhaps especially because, of the silliness
and so in true Saturn Return fashion, i’ve decided that i’m gonna stick with it. i’m gonna write this book. i think the meaning—the intention—will change, though, just as i’ve changed in these last years. and a lot will have to go.
so, i thought some of what goes could perhaps go here! we’ll try it out, at least.
so enjoy these bits of boarding school and new york and modeling, and know that while you will not find them in my debut novel, you WILL find george. george already exists, and their story will be told.
the Fawn moms fawn over george often, and I’ll tell you why
she’s bone thin
the Fawn moms touch george often, and I’ll tell you why
she’s Black
and because she’s both (:: exotic, a toy)
they’re always trying to get her into modeling,
telling her about their ins with people,
friends who are agents
and can make things happen for her
—and their rounder, paler, generally
unremarkable daughters
resent her for it,
stopped inviting her
to join along for off-campus dinners
which is really just fine, because
the Stag dads leered at her at them
over her $50 porterhouses—
and yet she’s never heard anything beyond this
from the Fawn moms,
nary a follow-up text nor a mention at the next volleyball game
(maybe because these women don’t even make it to 4:20
before getting high on their various forms of soma)
and she was never quite sure
if they wanted her to push it,
hear her ask,
have her beg,
but george speculates they just have difficulty
remembering she’s a person
who exists outside of them.
but last summer in nyc,
in the very first week after the solstice,
she was waltzing down 14th street
when someone with pink hair and an asymmetrical jean skort
stops her with urgency—
WHO are you signed with?
She was like, excuse me? naturally
and was affronted with a thick card
Butterfly, no last name,
was with Bored, a modeling agency,
and they wanted her to come meet with their team,
immediately, before she left town
just for a chat
she went, of course. carpe diem and shit.
They took photos of her profile, hands, and feet
wrapped a tape measure over her boobs, waist, and ass
sat her down in a conference room,
asked about her ambitions in modeling,
and she realized in that moment that she may not want this at all
said, i just want to work with Black people and be happy
they couldn’t promise either one, told her
this takes a lot of work.
she was like lmfao um, why?
six of them stared back at her,
either blankly, hungry, or shifty
and then there was the sun,
who shined directly into her eyes.
she had deja vu.
they spoke in turn:
you should know...
it’s not a job.
it’s a lifestyle, honey.
expect nothing, okay?
hope for everything, though.
you could be sitting here after a year
on either six figures
or a mound of debt
and an insecurity complex you’ll never, ever, shake.
that last one is our only promise, actually.
BUT
you might get to wear a fancy dress
or be gifted to a billionaire,
or have branded nudes posted
in glossy print magazines overseas
(with our consent, on your behalf)
just imagine.
she said, okay...
but anyone can be on a billboard,
or in a magazine,
or wear a fancy dress,
if they can pay for it.
so is it really that special?
she didn’t say (didn’t know):
these single-serving,
people-pleasing
meets and greets
and walks and spins
and pics that take
blood, sweat, tears—nah,
fucking force
your lifeblood,
self-worth,
and values out of you
(all three)
as payment
to shine
as
yourself
(if they let you, and only for as long as they profit off you)
they are nothing in comparison to her dreams.
(not that she knows what those are yet)
Why would she
pay
in time and dignity
as well as money, mind you,
so that her
Beautiful
Ethereal
Angelic
form can contribute to—
what is the fashion industry, really?
child slave labor and a classist culture of exclusion
in a trenchcoat and heels.
these are the things she considered, subconsciously, during her staring contest with the sun,
a plane went by, and she won.
Her goals
as a model
what an absurd concept. what a waste of goals.
she told them she’d get back to them after finishing school
they said the door was always revolving—
well they said “open”
with their mouths.
that was fun!! this is fun. it feels like its what Substack is all about: writing that will not go into a book. i do think in the future though i’ll put these scrapped snippets behind the privacy wall along with my Saturn Return video diaries. (i’ve also just recorded an accompanying entry to make its way here shortly.) maybe it’s my guiding planet being in my 8th house, but i am lovingggg the privacy wall of it all.
and as i say every time, if you want to join in on my secrets without inputting your card deets for fee-charging middlemen, you can reach out to me!