Page 1 - The Most Incomplete Story I have

Oh hi! I’m MJ Bailey, and I write things. Sometimes. It doesn’t mean I always know what to write, but hey, we’ll get there. I guess.

This is the first true episode of this project, a project that I still have doubts about because I really don’t know what it’s going to be long term. I have several episode ideas and things I need to get off my chest, but honestly, after that, I just don’t know.

But maybe I’m focused on the wrong side of things. I’m trying to figure out where this thing ends when I really should be focused on the beginning. The true start of my writing journey, back when I was a much shorter creator gazing up at giants with wonder in my eyes. 

(Music fades out and new music fades in)

Reading that imagery aloud, I can taste the cheese, but when I wrote it, it actually seemed pretty profound. Because at 5’3’’ tall, I’m still on the shorter side, and I still look to my literary heroes with the utmost esteem and questions on when or if I could ever be on that level. 

But before we even get to that, it all starts somewhere, right? With the little MJ Bailey scribbling short stories in whatever printer paper I could take from my dad’s office. I mean, he didn’t care that I was using his printer paper. It was more about convenience. Like, that’s where we mostly use the paper, so just keep it in Dad’s office. But as for those stories, a lot of it used the characters in the books I was reading at the time, so essentially, I was writing fan fiction before I even understood the concept. 

And I’m kind of proud of that. I mean, maybe there’s some complication there that I should be aware of, right? Intellectual property is important. But to me, it was about engaging with the stories I loved in this new way or in some other way besides just reading the book. 

But on a larger note, this activity was more about relating to something in my life in a very specific way, which is what I would continue to do for the rest of my life in one form or another. 

I eventually moved away from relying on other people’s characters, from what I’ve always considered ‘training wheels’ on the bicycle that is the act of writing. The spark had taken hold, though. It happened, it started a fire, and my mom was willing to tolerate my random questions about the stories I could write with copyrighted characters and also to not think about the law. I mean, I was a kid. I wasn’t going to publish any of this. 

But it went beyond that. When I was about 9 or 10, my mom started to buy me small journals, things that could have been a diary in other circumstances. And I would fill them not with thoughts from my day but with story ideas, scraps of what could have been a full fledge book, or even was a full book. Usually, I wrote about girls with magical powers like in the cartoons I was watching. PowderPuff Girls, yes, but also Sailor Moon. It was the first anime I ever saw. I didn’t even know what anime was. Frankly, I just liked the idea of having power, specifically supernatural powers or something like that. I liked creating girls like me but also bigger than me, metaphorically or otherwise.

(Music fades out and new music fades in)

And then there were other notebooks, full of ideas of something like a teenager writing and selling her stories to help pay for her father’s many prescriptions. Typical American story, you might say. But it hit even closer to home than that.

My father was sick most of my childhood. I didn’t know much about our family financial situation, but I knew the number at the pharmacy’s cash register always sounded high. And I knew both of my parents hated their jobs and that they were stressed all the time. 

It was a situation I could do nothing about. In fact, they didn’t deliberately tell me about it. Which, in some way, is the responsible thing to do, but I was a little kid who loved to foil their attempts at being responsible parents. I was never where they thought I was. Instead, I was finding new ways to get under foot and in their way. Consequently, I heard too much about their concerns, their complaints, and their arguments. Also, in my defense, I had learned not to fully trust what they said to me directly. 

My father had a heart attack when I was 6 and my parents tried to play off his hospitalization as just another business trip. I’m sure it’s the sort of thing that would have been great if they could get away with it. It made sense in the moment. The logic is clear and apparent, but once I saw through it, I lost the ability to fully trust them. I mean, they were still my parents. I loved them, and in that instance, they meant more than well. On the whole they were good parents, but there are some mistakes that cut much too deep to not be felt. And this is probably one of those instances. I caught them in the lie fairly early on. My dad’s briefcase gave them away. It was still sitting by the door, and I knew if it was home then he had to be. He wouldn’t go to work or on a business trip without it.

I guess I was too smart for my own good. If you’ve heard that expression before, you’re probably suspicious of it. At least, I was when I first heard it because it seems like a lamentation that a kid is hard to control. After all, intelligence and critical thinking are what one needs to question rules–especially the arbitrary ones–that parents put sometimes upon them, intentions aside just because it gets us to the next moment. Sometimes you don’t have time to explain your logic, or sometimes you just don’t think a kid will get it. Or maybe it’s not about what’s in your kid’s best interest but about what’s easiest for you short or long term. And look, maybe that is how most adults have utilized that expression, maybe it’s a lamentation that the thing they made that they believe they have full dominion over cannot be easily controlled. But there’s a reason you put some sort of barriers or boundaries around your kids. There’s a reason to hold them back. I’m exhibit number 1 on that front. And I didn’t make it easy on them. I was just too smart.

It’s hard to know how much of this forbidden knowledge my parents knew for sure I had. I mean, hindsight is 20/20, and my mom has since been able to fill in the gaps of what I was able to figure out based on the anxiety and panic spells that have come later. In the moment, though, things were more unclear, and it’s not like either of us knew how to talk about it. And maybe it didn’t have to be said simply because I doubt we could have made real progress on that front. But no, I won’t be elaborating on that.

(Music fades out and new music fades in)

But this question of childhood inclinations has been especially on of mind as of late what with the election of the new pope, a statement which dates the writing of this script. But if you don’t know what I’m talking about for whatever reason: May 2025 sees the Catholic church get a new pope. Cardinal Robert Francis Pervost ends up as pope and then his brothers end up giving a lot of interviews talking about how they used to bully their younger brother who was constantly playing pretend priest instead of doing whatever it is they wanted to do. And honestly, some of those interviews are hilarious. 

“You threw the pope down the stairs?” one interviewer says as an older brother lists off the typical sibling torments they were left to inflict on each other.

“He wasn’t the pope. He was the pretend pope,” his brother immediately replies.

But then he became pope, Pope Leon XIV. 

And as for me, well, what about me? I had siblings. They didn’t grow up with me. Age differences, man. They can be such a bitch sometimes. Also, there were other things I’m not ready to talk about. But despite the lack of siblings to serve as sources or references for what I was as a child, maybe I was going through a similar set of motions. I was writing. I was pretending that I was some big shot writer. There was just no one to throw me down the stairs.

So that’s a good sign, right? I’m on the right track. The seeds were planted when I was young, and I am gradually–slowly but surely–nurturing those impulses. 

Or is there even a track at this point? Nevermind a track record. There are people who go into writing who find it later. And there are people who drop the things that defined their childhood. It’s not a linear process. It’s a straightforward connection until it isn’t. 

And when I phrase it that way, it seems frustrating, but that description also applies to the human experience. There isn’t a straightforward connection unless there is. There is a correlation until there isn't. It has to be that way, though. Life would be so dull otherwise, right? We are creatures that need novelty and stimulation, but we also don’t do well with uncertainty. Or at least, I don’t do well with uncertainty. Some people do. Some don’t. I don’t.

And I should be glad that I know that about myself. Any self knowledge is a step in the right direction, I suppose. Or it’s just a step in a direction. But what’s the next one?

(Music fades out and new music fades in)

To add to that, to sprinkle in some more current events, or relatively current events, the organization that had some formal role in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) has well and truly died. And if you haven’t been keeping up with that story, this death is kind of deserved, to be honest. You had almost every type of scandal under the sun happening. And it’s not like the challenge of writing 50,000 words in a month really has to be tied to a singular organization. 

In fact, I started NaNoWriMo in high school when a fellow club member in the school’s literary magazine told me about it. Or I think that’s how the story goes. I don’t fully remember. But once I found this challenge, I took to it. I hit it head on because it made me feel like I was something, like I had proven to myself that I could really write. That I could be a writer or maybe even was one. The evidence was right in front of me: in those 50,000 words that flowed from my pencil with ease. 

Yes, I used to handwrite my manuscripts. I don’t really recommend that. Or the carpal tunnel wouldn’t recommend it.

But either way, regardless of how I did it, this  was a sign, right? An external indicator to give me validation. It was a piece of evidence towards a thesis I was desperate to prove. I was a writer. I wrote things. I did a lot of writing in a very short period of time, in fact. An almost inhuman amount, right? So that achievement was something to feel good about. It was a sign that I was good, that I was capable, more than so many other people. 

But it was fleeting. The more I overcame that challenge the weaker and shorter that feeling. And now it’s almost nothing. 

I’ve written 50,000 words in five days live on Twitch.tv. That isn’t bragging, that’s just explaining, that old challenge doesn’t really mean anything to me anymore. And even 50,000 words across five days… Well, I won’t say I felt nothing. I just didn’t feel what I thought I was going to.

And I know that’s horribly irrational. If anything, these feats should intensify the feeling. It wasn’t a one time thing or a fluke. This was a true, repeated, well-earned victory. It showed a potential or a need. It was something much deeper than I first thought. There’s significance there. In me. I just don’t know what it is, unfortunately. 

And that’s the problem, right? I need to know what that is, but I have absolutely no clue. Not at this point. Or not on this page. 

But here’s what I have gleaned from all this dissatisfaction: the goal post for me to recognize myself as a writer  is easily moved. And with almost no prompting, I’ll find a way to move it. But also, you shouldn’t really rely on goal posts because the creative route is not one of a set path. Nothing in life is, but destinies might be particularly hard to predict. If they do exist. Or so I think. But that’s not what I wanted to hear. None of it is particularly in line with what I was hoping for. It just is what it is.

So with that, I’m MJ Bailey, and I’m a writer, I guess. Whatever that means.

(Music fades out and new music fades in)

The Writer’s Open Book is a podcast from Miscellany Media Studios. It is written, edited, and produced by MJ Bailey with music from the Sounds like an Earful music supply. The logo was made by Keldor777 on Twitch. And to the Queen of Cups in my life, you know who you are, thank you for helping me process so much of this writing journey and for all the support. I couldn’t have done it without you.