Misty LeClaire had been making up stories since she was a little girl.
Anytime she had a writing assignment for school, she always overexcelled. This gradually led to her writing for fun outside of that, which led to her eventually submitting short fiction to magazines. But this was where the rude awakening began, because, as Misty soon learned, there was a big difference between fiction that made you happy and fiction that made you successful, and she wasn't attaining the second one. And so, Misty changed gears. She took the things she was good at, and she went about writing for others instead of herself. She was good at information gathering, pairing things down to just the essentials, and mimicking the voices of others, which made her the ideal candidate when it came to ghost writing.
But the one thing she hadn't counted on was having to ghost write for someone who's entire shtick was telling people to think for themselves. Which is why, when the book released the day prior and Natasha picked up a copy, she was...well...understandably confused by its contents.
***
"You do realize why this is insane, right?" Nat asked, as she and Misty sat in her living room, the book on the coffee table between them; Nat gestured toward it and shook her head in disbelief, "I don't...I don't even really know how you managed to get away with it, quite frankly."
"The publisher wasn't happy, trust me," Misty replied, "I had to really sell it to them."
"Yeah, and how did that go?" Nat asked, leaning back into her couch and folding her arms.
"Not good!" Misty said, laughing, as Nat continued shaking her head. Misty seemed so...unfazed. As if what she'd done was normal. Totally and completely understandable. Not at all freaking weird. Nat just couldn't wrap her head around it. After a few minutes of chewing on her lip and thinking about it, she finally spoke again.
"You know, when we agreed to do this, you said you would shadow me, take notes, organize it all and put out something that would show the public what my life was like, to make me even more relatable than I apparently already am. What happened to that idea? I liked that idea," Nat said.
"That idea didn't feel honest," Misty said, shrugging, "it felt...it felt disingenuous to who you are, and what you represent to others."
"And what is that? What do I represent?" Nat asked, sounding annoyed.
"Choice," Misty said flatly, "I mean, plain and simple. Choice. You represent choice. All you ever tell people is not to listen to you, and to make the decisions they feel are right for themselves. I figure, hell, reading this book might make you relatable, sure, but it'll also be like a guidebook, and who wants that. They should think for themselves. Not buy a book because it tells them what to think, but because it suggests their own thoughts are far more worthwhile."
Nat blinked a few times. That...certainly hadn't been the answer she'd been anticipating. She sighed and reached up, rubbing her face in her hands. Misty set her coffee mug on the table and crossed her legs.
"You know," Misty continued, "when I was first starting out, like professionally, not when I first started writing, I was told that I'm good at mimicking others. You don't really think about what that does to your personality at the time though. Sure, it got me work, but it...it created this empty hole inside of me, where because I never wrote as myself, I don't think I'm a person. I've been everyone but me."
Nat nodded, listening. Misty had a point. To spend ones entire life covering others entire lives, in some cases outright pretending to be them while simultaneously not getting the credit for the things "they" wrote...that had to be intensely frustrating. Nat's eyes scanned back down to the book on the table between them.
"Regardless of anything else," Misty finished, "I think it goes without saying that I've never really had much of a chance to utilize my writing to explore myself. I've explored others to death. Plumbed the depths of their personalities, discovered who they were and what made them tick. But...I've never known those very same things about me. I have vague ideas, sure, but nothing concrete. I think...I think yours might be the last one I write. I think I want to find out about me next."
Nat smiled. Had this, in some way, been yet another example of her ability to get people to want to listen to themselves? She sure did seem to have a knack for that. Nat sighed and crossed her legs.
"I guess in the grand scheme of things what you did isn't bad or even wrong," Nat said, "just...confusing. Not what anyone was expecting. But, ya know, perhaps that's what this business is. Always leave 'em guessing."
"Well, if there's one thing I'm good at," Misty replied, "it's giving people something to think about."
***
"You're very talented," her 11th grade english teacher said, "you excel at not using your own voice, which is not a skill every writer has, and it's likely to guarantee you a good deal of success. But I am concerned that you don't have a voice of your own."
Misty had always enjoyed english classes throughout school, but her favorite had been her 11th grade teacher, Mr. Markson's, class. He was encouraging, supportive and he truly did see her potential, something every teacher had seen but not every teacher had brought attention to. She appreciated that.
"Well," Misty said, shrugging, standing in front of his desk, "is that so important? I mean, fiction lives or dies by how realistic its characters are, right? So being capable of having multiple voices is, as you said, a good skill to possess."
"It is," Mr. Markson said, nodding, "but at the same time I worry that you may don't understand why not having your own is concerning. Your own voice is what separates you from the rest of the writers in the world, it's what makes you recognizable. Yes, the ability you have is impressive, and I'm jealous even, but if your characters voices overshadow your own, then...all anyone will remember is them as their own existing people, not the person who brought them to life. Again, not necessarily a bad thing, you want people to connect with them that deeply, but it's just something to keep in mind."
Misty tried to keep this in mind, but really, she didn't understand the problem. Most of her life, especially amongst her peers, nobody liked her anyway, so why care if she had her own voice? Clearly, people were more interested in her if she was someone else. And so she stuck the course. She remained being others, because that seemed far more preferable, especially in regards to her chances at success. And she wasn't wrong. That very same skill was what eventually got her work doing ghost writing. Oddly enough, she found that she really didn't care about getting credit, either. The act of writing itself was enough to sustain her. She was paid handsomely, and so she could live rather comfortably. She wrote her own original stuff in her spare time, published to a small website she ran that housed all her work under a pseudonym, but otherwise, she really didn't care just spending her life being other people.
Until she met Natasha.
***
"I gotta say," Nat said, "when I opened it up just to find...well...what I found, I wasn't even angry, I was just confused."
"Probably the likely reaction of everyone," Misty responded, shrugging.
"That being said, your argument makes a great deal of sense," Nat continued, "and, you really did kind of capture the essence of who I am and what it is I stand for and so how can I possibly be angry about that? Is it a little scammy to get paid for doing essentially nothing? Debatable, but hey, I think you're the only one who ever really got it, so how mad can I realistically be?"
Misty chuckled at this sentiment, but nodded in agreement. She had, after all, done her job, and judging by the numbers thusfar, the book was on its way to being a totally financial success. She picked her mug back up and continued sipping the coffee.
"But folks might be mad, understandably so," Nat added, "I mean, after all, we did just sell them an empty book."
Misty laughed, nodding again.
"We sure did," she said.
That was the thing. Misty had spent weeks, months even, learning things about Nat, her life and her business, and compiled it all into heavily detailed notes, only to, in turn, throw all of that out in favor of something that, as Nat had put it, captured the essence of who she was and what she stood for. Misty finished drinking the coffee and plopped the mug back down on the table, then sighed.
"Listen," she said, "as I said, your entire persona is that you want people to think for themselves, trust their own guts, feelings, emotions. You don't want to be a leader. You want them to lead themselves. That's what people find admirable about you. So how could I, in turn, release something that would be the exact antithesis of that very sentiment? I mean, this book was supposed to show your life to people, but people often model their lives after those they admire, sometimes intentionally, sometimes not, and that just seemed so...wrong. That isn't you. So instead I opted to leave the entire thing blank, as if to say 'Look, what's important is that everyones story is their own, and you can write yours too'. I know it's out there, but...it just felt right."
Natasha had a hard time arguing, really. Misty had, in actuality, gotten her down to a science. Besides, everyone already knew what Natasha's life was like. She'd been so open about it in interviews, on the website, everyone knew the history of the show and herself, why repackage and resell them the same old story again when doing something new was far more interesting and unexpected?
"And what happens when they complain? Because someone inevitably will," Nat asked, and Misty shrugged.
"Fuck 'em," she said, "is the book a novelty, a prop, a gag? Probably. But it's also a statement. Somehow with yours I did so much more by saying nothing than all the ones I wrote where I said too much. I think that alone speaks for itself."
Natasha smiled and leaned forward, picking the book back up and skimming through its empty pages.
"So what do you plan to do now?" she asked.
"Honestly, I don't know," Misty replied, "I was thinking maybe I would do something for myself. Work on actually submitting and publishing fiction. With my track record now, people can't say no to me. All I do know is this...I am so tired of writing for others, of being others, and I'd kinda like to learn who I am for a change. I guess I owe that all to you, too. I'd like to follow my own instincts, you know? That's what you always preach, so."
"I think that's a great idea," Nat said, putting the book down in her lap and looking up at Misty, "...I guess we don't have any business together anymore now that this is completed, but that doesn't mean we can't stay friends. I'd like to keep you on somehow. Give you a job with the site, the company, but only if you want to."
"Maybe after a little hiatus," Misty said, standing up and shrugging as she pulled her coat back on, "but we'll see. I need some downtime first and foremost."
Nat got up and followed Misty to the door. Misty opened the front door and stood there, then turned around and faced Natasha.
"You know," Misty said, pulling her hood up over her head, "I had an english teacher once, who I greatly respected and who was very supportive of me, tell me that even though I posessed magnificent skill in giving voice to others, I had no voice of my own. But look at where that's gotten me. Sure, maybe I don't have my own work out there and maybe I odn't know who I am exactly, but I'm successful, and now I can bankroll my own projects as a result. Guess it just goes to show that teachers don't know everything, even if they do believe in you."
Nat laughed as Misty held her hand out, and Nat shook it. As Nat watched Misty walk to her car, she couldn't help but wonder something.
"Hey," Nat called out, "How did you manage to get them to publish a blank book?"
Misty stopped, hand on the car door handle and looked back, shrugging.
"I didn't," she said, "I just sent it off myself."
And with that, she got into her car and drove away, leaving Nat rather speechless. If Nat was a hero to others...Misty was hers.
***
A joy of words doesn't come from nowhere. It often has to be nurtured, and Misty LeClaire had it nurtured to the nth degree. When she was a little girl, she would crawl into her mother's bed with storybooks and ask her to read them to her until she fell asleep in her arms. Misty's mother continued to nurture her interest in the written word as she got older, taking her to libraries, book signings, and even bookmobiles. She and her mother even had little book club nights featuring just the two of them. They would each pick a book and they would sit in the living room with the soft lighting and the quiet and they would read together. Sometimes they would even pick the same book so they could discuss it afterwards.
And then, one day, a teacher told Misty she didn't have her own voice. That she was talented, that she could speak for others, fictional or otherwise, but that she couldn't speak for herself. That she didn't know what her internal dialogue sounded like. She was so distraught that she sat at the kitchen table and ate an entire box of peanut butter cookies. When her mother got home, Misty told her what had happened, what her teacher had said, and her mother, instead of putting the groceries away, set them on the countertop and seated herself at the table with her daughter, one hand on her back.
"What you have," she told Misty, "is a gift. An ability to give a voice to the voiceless. To those who might otherwise not be listened to. It isn't a bad thing. Nothing about you ever could be. Use this skill to the best of your ability, because one day...one day it'll pay off in spades."
And from that moment on, Misty felt no shame in what she was capable of doing. She churned out ghostbook after ghostbook, wrote article after article - all dry and factual without ever requiring a voice of her own - and all to great success. That's what Misty saw in Natasha, above all else, as she spent time around her. The same kind of woman, raising Violet, that she had as her own mother. That night, after getting home, Misty called her mom up and told her about her latest success, and when she told her she was finally going to take some time off to work on her own projects, get her own original fictin published, all her mother had to say was
"You do whatever you feel is best for you."
Because, again, like Natasha, her mother was nothing if not a proponant of listening to your heart, and not the intents of others. If only everyone could be so lucky as to grow up with that.
Anytime she had a writing assignment for school, she always overexcelled. This gradually led to her writing for fun outside of that, which led to her eventually submitting short fiction to magazines. But this was where the rude awakening began, because, as Misty soon learned, there was a big difference between fiction that made you happy and fiction that made you successful, and she wasn't attaining the second one. And so, Misty changed gears. She took the things she was good at, and she went about writing for others instead of herself. She was good at information gathering, pairing things down to just the essentials, and mimicking the voices of others, which made her the ideal candidate when it came to ghost writing.
But the one thing she hadn't counted on was having to ghost write for someone who's entire shtick was telling people to think for themselves. Which is why, when the book released the day prior and Natasha picked up a copy, she was...well...understandably confused by its contents.
***
"You do realize why this is insane, right?" Nat asked, as she and Misty sat in her living room, the book on the coffee table between them; Nat gestured toward it and shook her head in disbelief, "I don't...I don't even really know how you managed to get away with it, quite frankly."
"The publisher wasn't happy, trust me," Misty replied, "I had to really sell it to them."
"Yeah, and how did that go?" Nat asked, leaning back into her couch and folding her arms.
"Not good!" Misty said, laughing, as Nat continued shaking her head. Misty seemed so...unfazed. As if what she'd done was normal. Totally and completely understandable. Not at all freaking weird. Nat just couldn't wrap her head around it. After a few minutes of chewing on her lip and thinking about it, she finally spoke again.
"You know, when we agreed to do this, you said you would shadow me, take notes, organize it all and put out something that would show the public what my life was like, to make me even more relatable than I apparently already am. What happened to that idea? I liked that idea," Nat said.
"That idea didn't feel honest," Misty said, shrugging, "it felt...it felt disingenuous to who you are, and what you represent to others."
"And what is that? What do I represent?" Nat asked, sounding annoyed.
"Choice," Misty said flatly, "I mean, plain and simple. Choice. You represent choice. All you ever tell people is not to listen to you, and to make the decisions they feel are right for themselves. I figure, hell, reading this book might make you relatable, sure, but it'll also be like a guidebook, and who wants that. They should think for themselves. Not buy a book because it tells them what to think, but because it suggests their own thoughts are far more worthwhile."
Nat blinked a few times. That...certainly hadn't been the answer she'd been anticipating. She sighed and reached up, rubbing her face in her hands. Misty set her coffee mug on the table and crossed her legs.
"You know," Misty continued, "when I was first starting out, like professionally, not when I first started writing, I was told that I'm good at mimicking others. You don't really think about what that does to your personality at the time though. Sure, it got me work, but it...it created this empty hole inside of me, where because I never wrote as myself, I don't think I'm a person. I've been everyone but me."
Nat nodded, listening. Misty had a point. To spend ones entire life covering others entire lives, in some cases outright pretending to be them while simultaneously not getting the credit for the things "they" wrote...that had to be intensely frustrating. Nat's eyes scanned back down to the book on the table between them.
"Regardless of anything else," Misty finished, "I think it goes without saying that I've never really had much of a chance to utilize my writing to explore myself. I've explored others to death. Plumbed the depths of their personalities, discovered who they were and what made them tick. But...I've never known those very same things about me. I have vague ideas, sure, but nothing concrete. I think...I think yours might be the last one I write. I think I want to find out about me next."
Nat smiled. Had this, in some way, been yet another example of her ability to get people to want to listen to themselves? She sure did seem to have a knack for that. Nat sighed and crossed her legs.
"I guess in the grand scheme of things what you did isn't bad or even wrong," Nat said, "just...confusing. Not what anyone was expecting. But, ya know, perhaps that's what this business is. Always leave 'em guessing."
"Well, if there's one thing I'm good at," Misty replied, "it's giving people something to think about."
***
"You're very talented," her 11th grade english teacher said, "you excel at not using your own voice, which is not a skill every writer has, and it's likely to guarantee you a good deal of success. But I am concerned that you don't have a voice of your own."
Misty had always enjoyed english classes throughout school, but her favorite had been her 11th grade teacher, Mr. Markson's, class. He was encouraging, supportive and he truly did see her potential, something every teacher had seen but not every teacher had brought attention to. She appreciated that.
"Well," Misty said, shrugging, standing in front of his desk, "is that so important? I mean, fiction lives or dies by how realistic its characters are, right? So being capable of having multiple voices is, as you said, a good skill to possess."
"It is," Mr. Markson said, nodding, "but at the same time I worry that you may don't understand why not having your own is concerning. Your own voice is what separates you from the rest of the writers in the world, it's what makes you recognizable. Yes, the ability you have is impressive, and I'm jealous even, but if your characters voices overshadow your own, then...all anyone will remember is them as their own existing people, not the person who brought them to life. Again, not necessarily a bad thing, you want people to connect with them that deeply, but it's just something to keep in mind."
Misty tried to keep this in mind, but really, she didn't understand the problem. Most of her life, especially amongst her peers, nobody liked her anyway, so why care if she had her own voice? Clearly, people were more interested in her if she was someone else. And so she stuck the course. She remained being others, because that seemed far more preferable, especially in regards to her chances at success. And she wasn't wrong. That very same skill was what eventually got her work doing ghost writing. Oddly enough, she found that she really didn't care about getting credit, either. The act of writing itself was enough to sustain her. She was paid handsomely, and so she could live rather comfortably. She wrote her own original stuff in her spare time, published to a small website she ran that housed all her work under a pseudonym, but otherwise, she really didn't care just spending her life being other people.
Until she met Natasha.
***
"I gotta say," Nat said, "when I opened it up just to find...well...what I found, I wasn't even angry, I was just confused."
"Probably the likely reaction of everyone," Misty responded, shrugging.
"That being said, your argument makes a great deal of sense," Nat continued, "and, you really did kind of capture the essence of who I am and what it is I stand for and so how can I possibly be angry about that? Is it a little scammy to get paid for doing essentially nothing? Debatable, but hey, I think you're the only one who ever really got it, so how mad can I realistically be?"
Misty chuckled at this sentiment, but nodded in agreement. She had, after all, done her job, and judging by the numbers thusfar, the book was on its way to being a totally financial success. She picked her mug back up and continued sipping the coffee.
"But folks might be mad, understandably so," Nat added, "I mean, after all, we did just sell them an empty book."
Misty laughed, nodding again.
"We sure did," she said.
That was the thing. Misty had spent weeks, months even, learning things about Nat, her life and her business, and compiled it all into heavily detailed notes, only to, in turn, throw all of that out in favor of something that, as Nat had put it, captured the essence of who she was and what she stood for. Misty finished drinking the coffee and plopped the mug back down on the table, then sighed.
"Listen," she said, "as I said, your entire persona is that you want people to think for themselves, trust their own guts, feelings, emotions. You don't want to be a leader. You want them to lead themselves. That's what people find admirable about you. So how could I, in turn, release something that would be the exact antithesis of that very sentiment? I mean, this book was supposed to show your life to people, but people often model their lives after those they admire, sometimes intentionally, sometimes not, and that just seemed so...wrong. That isn't you. So instead I opted to leave the entire thing blank, as if to say 'Look, what's important is that everyones story is their own, and you can write yours too'. I know it's out there, but...it just felt right."
Natasha had a hard time arguing, really. Misty had, in actuality, gotten her down to a science. Besides, everyone already knew what Natasha's life was like. She'd been so open about it in interviews, on the website, everyone knew the history of the show and herself, why repackage and resell them the same old story again when doing something new was far more interesting and unexpected?
"And what happens when they complain? Because someone inevitably will," Nat asked, and Misty shrugged.
"Fuck 'em," she said, "is the book a novelty, a prop, a gag? Probably. But it's also a statement. Somehow with yours I did so much more by saying nothing than all the ones I wrote where I said too much. I think that alone speaks for itself."
Natasha smiled and leaned forward, picking the book back up and skimming through its empty pages.
"So what do you plan to do now?" she asked.
"Honestly, I don't know," Misty replied, "I was thinking maybe I would do something for myself. Work on actually submitting and publishing fiction. With my track record now, people can't say no to me. All I do know is this...I am so tired of writing for others, of being others, and I'd kinda like to learn who I am for a change. I guess I owe that all to you, too. I'd like to follow my own instincts, you know? That's what you always preach, so."
"I think that's a great idea," Nat said, putting the book down in her lap and looking up at Misty, "...I guess we don't have any business together anymore now that this is completed, but that doesn't mean we can't stay friends. I'd like to keep you on somehow. Give you a job with the site, the company, but only if you want to."
"Maybe after a little hiatus," Misty said, standing up and shrugging as she pulled her coat back on, "but we'll see. I need some downtime first and foremost."
Nat got up and followed Misty to the door. Misty opened the front door and stood there, then turned around and faced Natasha.
"You know," Misty said, pulling her hood up over her head, "I had an english teacher once, who I greatly respected and who was very supportive of me, tell me that even though I posessed magnificent skill in giving voice to others, I had no voice of my own. But look at where that's gotten me. Sure, maybe I don't have my own work out there and maybe I odn't know who I am exactly, but I'm successful, and now I can bankroll my own projects as a result. Guess it just goes to show that teachers don't know everything, even if they do believe in you."
Nat laughed as Misty held her hand out, and Nat shook it. As Nat watched Misty walk to her car, she couldn't help but wonder something.
"Hey," Nat called out, "How did you manage to get them to publish a blank book?"
Misty stopped, hand on the car door handle and looked back, shrugging.
"I didn't," she said, "I just sent it off myself."
And with that, she got into her car and drove away, leaving Nat rather speechless. If Nat was a hero to others...Misty was hers.
***
A joy of words doesn't come from nowhere. It often has to be nurtured, and Misty LeClaire had it nurtured to the nth degree. When she was a little girl, she would crawl into her mother's bed with storybooks and ask her to read them to her until she fell asleep in her arms. Misty's mother continued to nurture her interest in the written word as she got older, taking her to libraries, book signings, and even bookmobiles. She and her mother even had little book club nights featuring just the two of them. They would each pick a book and they would sit in the living room with the soft lighting and the quiet and they would read together. Sometimes they would even pick the same book so they could discuss it afterwards.
And then, one day, a teacher told Misty she didn't have her own voice. That she was talented, that she could speak for others, fictional or otherwise, but that she couldn't speak for herself. That she didn't know what her internal dialogue sounded like. She was so distraught that she sat at the kitchen table and ate an entire box of peanut butter cookies. When her mother got home, Misty told her what had happened, what her teacher had said, and her mother, instead of putting the groceries away, set them on the countertop and seated herself at the table with her daughter, one hand on her back.
"What you have," she told Misty, "is a gift. An ability to give a voice to the voiceless. To those who might otherwise not be listened to. It isn't a bad thing. Nothing about you ever could be. Use this skill to the best of your ability, because one day...one day it'll pay off in spades."
And from that moment on, Misty felt no shame in what she was capable of doing. She churned out ghostbook after ghostbook, wrote article after article - all dry and factual without ever requiring a voice of her own - and all to great success. That's what Misty saw in Natasha, above all else, as she spent time around her. The same kind of woman, raising Violet, that she had as her own mother. That night, after getting home, Misty called her mom up and told her about her latest success, and when she told her she was finally going to take some time off to work on her own projects, get her own original fictin published, all her mother had to say was
"You do whatever you feel is best for you."
Because, again, like Natasha, her mother was nothing if not a proponant of listening to your heart, and not the intents of others. If only everyone could be so lucky as to grow up with that.