About Me — Charlotte Jade
Thirty, single, and about to embark on the greatest adventure of my life.
Thirty. I am thirty.
I suppose that’s as good a place to start as any. A number my mind struggles to negotiate. Not in the way some might assume — I’m not afraid of infertility — but because I never imagined I’d be thirty without having published a novel.
When I graduated high school, the fact that I loved writing meant very little to anyone but me. The advice was to pick a sensible career — a safe career — something secure, with a tangible, well-paid outcome at the end of it. Study psychology and be a psychologist. Study medicine and be a doctor. Study law and be a lawyer.
I spent much of my twenties riding horses and working as a human rights advocate and therapist in rural communities. I wrote in the in-between moments, sometimes putting down 10,000 words on a weekend, sometimes going months without penning a thing. Mostly, I was rewriting the same manuscript I’d been working on since I was nineteen — my apprenticeship, as I somewhat affectionately refer to it now. I was stuck. Not blocked, just not committed.
A few months shy of thirty and newly single after being cheated on for the second time by the same guy (I know, I know), I realised I was on track to die with my writing inside me (or at least inside my MacBook).
More than my breakup and the corkscrew-style pain of betrayal, when I looked at my life, I was devastated by my lack of commitment to writing. There were five fiction manuscripts on my MacBook. Why hadn’t I finished any of them to a publishable standard? Why hadn’t I tried?
If someone were to ask me, what’s the one thing I’ve always wanted in life as far back as I can remember? I would answer, without a moment’s hesitation, to be a writer.
To write books.
So what the hell had I been doing?
I wanted to do something that felt slightly outlandish, something drastic, something that rattled me enough that it pivoted the entire trajectory of my life. And why not? It felt like my life imploded when my relationship ended anyway. I figured I might as well stick with the trend and blow up my career as well (a touch dramatic, but give a girl a break; I was basically composed of eggshells).
I decided to apply for a Master of Fine Arts (MFA) in Creative Writing (Fiction).
The catch?
I had to get in, and even if I did, I couldn’t afford it (!?).
I needed an offer and a paid assistantship with tuition covered to make it work.
I know. I hear your scepticism. Trust me, it felt like just about the longest shot I could take, but at the risk of sounding completely unhinged, something firm, stoic, and utterly foreign inside me said try.
It was September. Many MFA deadlines were closing in December. Much of what I read on Reddit and various blogs said to start preparing your submission at least six months in advance.
I was just going to have to shoot my shot. I purchased Grammarly and sent out hasty emails begging references from my psychology professors (praying they remembered me). My saving grace was the manuscripts I’d benched on my MacBook.
I want to be clear: I don’t think you need to study an MFA to be a writer. If you write, you’re a writer. I settled on the MFA for two very personal reasons:
1. Given how long I’d been yearning to be a writer without doing anything about it, I wanted (and needed) to make a particularly tangible commitment to this career. I wanted to make a gesture grand enough that I could see that I was (finally) stepping into this as my life’s mission and —
2. I didn’t trust myself to do it on my own. Why? Because I’d had, give or take, 20 years and not done it yet.
Granted, my self-worth had come a long way (taking a stand on my relationship was evidence of that), and it would help me take my writing seriously, but I wanted community too— expansion in relationship with others who write. Plus, my technique needed work: plot, structure, POV, and learning the mechanics of finishing a manuscript to a publishable standard. Not to mention just plunging myself head-first into the literary world. I wanted to live and breathe writing — a full-body commitment.
I imagine I could do all that without an MFA; the internet is unquestionably inexhaustible. However, the final piece was that if I could land an assistantship, I would be paid a small wage to learn to write. My time, energy, and focus could be spent writing.
I applied to eight programs, bit my nails till they throbbed, and spent the next five months hovering in this oddly quiet space of unavoidable uncertainty about the direction my life would take in 2024. Did I have a plan B? Sure: move in with my sister (I did that anyway) until I heard back and could start looking for my own place, and continue working as a coach and therapist, writing in-between.
On a stiflingly humid morning in March, I received an international call from a Texas area code. I was in a Zoom conference for work and had to watch my phone ring out, but I knew. Who else from Texas would be calling me? Giddy and half-drunk on anxiety, I gripped my desk until the Zoom call ended. I was crying before I dialled the US exit code.
I had an offer: a place in their program, a full scholarship I hadn’t applied for nor known existed, and a paid assistantship.
My heart stumbled. Something inside me shifted. For the first time, I felt like I was shuffling my life into something that was ultimately and remarkably recognisable as mine.
I am now a month away from leaving Australia for the USA and equal parts elated and alarmed. Being here on Medium is another phase of my evolution as a writer. Another way to stride out into this part of my story. There is a felt sense in my soul that I am home. The destruction of my relationship and the version of myself that was a part of it now seems like a kind of revolution. That is the unexpected and extraordinarily delicious gift of this era of my life. I will never again forgo what speaks in my soul for what others might imagine needs to be heard.
As a Play Therapist and coach, my writing tends to lean into mental wellness, anxiety, and self-actualisation, which is a rather banal way of saying that I typically write about living on a merry-go-round of anxious thoughts (and, more often, how to get off).
To know me is to know:
- I am entirely averse to small talk.
- My first feeling in the morning is often shame for my mediocre attempts to live sustainably.
- My ego is my principal nemesis — the lurid and seductive pull to be good enough. I am in an ongoing and rather violent dance to relinquish it.
- I rarely answer phone calls the first time someone calls, and—
- whilst I am perpetually disappointed by humanity, I am vehemently against nihilism.
It is my extreme pleasure and privilege to show up here and share my words with you. I would love to connect with you and read your stories — please leave a comment so I can find you
https://medium.com/@charlyskew
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