*Tap Tap* Is This Thing On?

Heyo! My name is Leeron/Lee. I am a writer, knitter, gamer, cat person, and I am weird.

What do I mean by ‘weird’?

I spent the first two decades of my life convinced that being my natural self would mean nobody understanding me, being disliked or even hated, and never achieving any kind of success. So I tried to be ‘normal’. I tried so hard that the acute chronic stress eventually fried parts of my nervous system and left me severely disabled. And even then, at the height of my masking… I had multiple people compliment me on how ‘authentic’ and ‘brave’ I was.

When I say I’m weird, I mean that I can’t fit into the mould society handed me no matter how hard, how long, how determinedly I squish and distort myself. I gave being normal my genuine best shot and not only did I fail, the attempt almost killed me.

So stuff that. Weird it is!

Having spent eight years trying to scrape my life back together and figuring out what happened, who I even am under all these layers of psychological papier-mâché, and where I can possibly go from here… I’ve given up on ‘normal’. I’ve given up on success, at least the kinds I was sold growing up. I haven’t given up on recovery, but I’m trying to accept that I will likely never get back the level of energy, cognition, and focus I had before I broke my brain. Perhaps it’s better to say that I’ve given up on waiting to get better.

I’m asking myself what I can do right now, meeting myself where I am.

And my answer is “write”.

I’ve always been a storyteller. Words are how I try to make sense of the world. Crafting narratives, moulding characters, building worlds, it’s as natural as breathing to me.

But when I shared my stories with people, while feedback was often positive and encouraging, the message was consistently… perplexed. Intrigued. Even puzzled.

Just like me, my stories are weird.

At the time, when I was subconsciously dedicated to masking, this was bad. A chink in the façade. And feedback which wasn’t supportive tended to be confusingly aggressive. People who don’t like something but can’t explain why often get defensive.

So I stopped sharing my stories. I kept writing – I can’t fathom the idea of not writing – but I wrote only for me. And that was fine.

Then a few years ago I had a writing spree, one of those joyful experiences where the entire narrative springs forth and flows and grows and weeks of freeform storytelling fly by. And at the end of it I realised I’d written a novel. Not just a long story (I’ve done that plenty of times) but a complete, self-contained, start-and-middle-and-end book. And it felt worth sharing.

Not publishing, there was no way I wanted to release my story into the wild in this raw form. Instead I joined a few writing groups and asked for advice. Feedback. Sources to learn more about the craft of writing.

And ran headfirst into the weird issue again.

People were confused. They kindly (or loftily) told me that the story I was describing wouldn’t work. Couldn’t exist. They acted like I was sketching out a loose hypothetical rather than sitting there with thousands of words already formed into a cohesive first draft. When I shared sections with them, they were encouraging but baffled.

It was familiar. This time, though, I wasn’t backing down.

I kept asking questions. Kept sharing snippets. Read every resource recommended to me. Most of which just reiterated the lessons I’d got since the start: “What are you doing? No, you can’t write like that! It doesn’t matter if this is a story you’d want to consume, nobody else will ever like it.”

Trying to distinguish between craft issues and harmless quirks of my weird personal style has turned out to be an undertaking. One that will likely continue for the rest of my life.

And I doubt I’m alone. Which brings us to this blog. (Stack? Newsletter?)

I’ve decided to document my journey in the hope it can be useful, or at least interesting, to others. I’ll be sharing my practice pieces, reflections on my writing/creating process, and reviews of resources I try.

If you, too, are walking the labyrinth of finding and raising your own weird voice, welcome!

If you are simply curious what creativity and storytelling look like from (and to) a weirdly shaped brain, then you are also welcome! But don’t bang the glass.

If you’re curious about the different flavours of weird I am, I’ve elaborated on each and how they affect my writing:

My weird: Autism

Note: This is not about autism itself. There are loads of good general educational resources about autism freely available, so I will not be discussing the definition, clinical analysis, etc. This is about how being autistic affects me as a writer.

Writing From WeirdLeeron Heywood

My weird: Psychopathy

“Psychopath” is a loaded term. Personality disorders are highly stigmatised - just look at the name. So I’m going to break down what I mean when I say I’m psychopathic before going into how it affects my writing.

Writing From WeirdLeeron Heywood

My weird: Agender

My society places massive emphasis and importance on gender, which makes life excessively complicated for those of us whose response to “what gender are you?” is “idk N/A?”.

Writing From WeirdLeeron Heywood

My weird: Aromantic & Asexual

What is it like not experiencing sexual attraction? Simple; imagine someone you experience no sexual attraction to. They’re not repulsive or anything, they might even be aesthetically pleasing, but they are 100% not your type.

Writing From WeirdLeeron Heywood

My weird: Disabled

Unlike the rest of the list, being disabled is not a lifelong experience for me. In fact it’s been excruciating to get used to.

Writing From WeirdLeeron Heywood