On Process: Not My Story to Tell

[Trigger warning: We speak on sensitive topics, such as oppression, illness, violence and slavery. Please scroll if this is too much for you.}

I have heard beautiful stories from other cultures. Sad myths from people who have survived generations of oppression.

They stay with me. The way a good story does. The way a truth you do not own can still live in your chest.

There is an incredible black author who wrote about slavery ships. About the ones who were dumped overboard when they were sick, based unfortunately on many real events. And she wrote that those women did not die. They fell into the water, and they turned into mermaids.

Fierce. Strong. Beautiful.

I read that and I felt something crack open in me. Not envy. Awe.

It was inspiring, how she took something so terrifying and created something new. Another story to tell.

And then I sat with a question: Could I write something like that?

The answer came quietly. No.

Not because I lack imagination. Not because I lack skill. Because that story is not mine to tell.

The trauma of the Middle Passage is not mine. The joy of reclaiming that trauma into something fierce and beautiful and alive — that is not my inheritance.

I am a white writer. A straight writer. I write inclusively and diversely. I am not afraid of research or sensitivity readers or the hard work of getting it right.

And I am ok with pushing the limits, learning new things, researching and having sensitivity readers. Engaging with the community, to get it right, and to learn and stretch and try again when I get it wrong.

To apologize, when I get it wrong, or misunderstand.

But some stories are not mine.

And that is okay.

I am learning that knowing what not to write is as important as knowing what to write.

The instinct to step back is not cowardice. It is clarity.

Respect.

Honesty.

There are stories I can tell. Stories about neurodivergence. Stories about escaping abuse. Stories about being a woman in a world that does not always listen. Stories about immigrants and ghosts and love triangles that bend genre.

Those are mine. I earned them. I lived them. Or I am doing the work to learn them with respect and collaboration.

But the story of enslaved women turning into mermaids? That is not mine.

Other stories, of other cultures, based in historical brutality?

That's not mine.

Closed practices belonging to people for thousands of years.

Not mine.

I don't want to think about how I would be taking something that was never offered. Colonization is already something that happened (and happens today). I do not want to become a narrative colonizer, accidentally. The world does not need more writers taking.

The world needs more writers listening.

I think about this every time I read something beautiful from a culture not my own. Every time I hear a myth that cracks me open. Every time I feel that little spark of I want to write something like that.

The spark is not the problem. The spark is admiration.

The question is what I do with it.

I've seen some authors blow threw this.

I saw one writer, much younger than me, on Instagram. She had a person of color in her stories, from his point of view - and while it's important to be inclusive in writing, she did NOT listen to the community, when they said she needed to be more respectful. She said it was a fantasy world, so "it was fine."

It was not fine.

Just because you dress something up in sci-fi or fantasy, does not mean you can be disrespectful.

This is why I can't create something from another person's culture and call it homage--absolutely not.

So then, I sit with the spark and let it teach me something quieter. Older.

That story is beautiful because it comes from a place I cannot go. That is not a limit. That is a gift. That story belongs to someone else. And I get to read it. I get to be moved by it. I get to let it make me a better writer without ever touching it.

That is not silence. That is respect.

I write diversely. I write inclusively. I am not afraid of writing outside my own orientation or my own body — I am doing that now with Thomas, with the ghost, with the brother, with the community members who are helping me see what I cannot see alone.

But writing outside yourself is not the same as writing everywhere.

There is a difference between reaching across a gap and erasing it.

I am still learning where that line is. I will probably get it wrong sometimes. I will listen when I am told. I will do better next time.

But on this one — the mermaids, the slave ships, that fierce and beautiful reclamation — I know the line.

It is not mine.

And that is okay.

Here is what I am coming to believe:

The fact that I cannot tell every story does not make me less of a writer. It makes me a responsible one.

My job is not to write everything. My job is to write what is mine — and to make space for others to write what is theirs.

That means reading. That means amplifying. That means recommending. That means celebrating stories that are not mine without a whisper of I could have done that.

Because I could not have.

And pretending I could would be the real failure.

So I will keep writing. Thomas. The ghost. The brother. The novel that scares me in the best way.

And I will keep reading. The mermaids. The myths. The stories that belong to others.

I will let them change me. I will not try to own them.

That is not a limitation. That is a practice.

And it is one I am proud to learn.