Calise Fiction: Barry Anderson Intro

Hi.  So after about 25 years of writing fiction being one of the things I love most in the whole world, I’m finally taking the leap to share one of my novels with the world, in serial chunks.  To share it with you.  I’m about as nervouscited as I could be about this.

If you really don’t want any spoilers about the premise of the piece of fiction you’re about to read, then feel free to go read the first chapter and come back.  It’s pretty clear, pretty quickly what this story is about, and if you don’t want to know the inciting incident before it happens, you can feel free to skip my musings and introduction for now.

For everyone else, here’s what I’d like you to know before you read Barry Anderson.

I think everyone has a different reason for writing fiction, and Justin’s always said if you’re going to write consistent themes and powerful stories, you need to know what that reason is.  I’ve always loved stories, but it took me a long time and a lot of self-reflection to know why writing them mattered so much to me.

Writing has always been the most satisfying art platform for me, having tried and enjoyed acting, dancing, singing, videography, graphic design, sewing and DIY, pottery, painting and drawing, and a bunch of other random stuff.  I maintain that art is all about communicating, especially communicating and evoking emotion, and I believe “good art” is art that communicates its intended emotion well.

This photo went out with all my unsuccessful publisher query letters at 16.  This pic kinda burns me because at 16 I felt so confused who the crap I wanted to be. The final version was cropped, so you couldn’t see the unofficial guide to the Backstreet Boys behind my head.

Writing wasn’t necessarily my favorite because it came easily to me.  I cringe so hard at my undeveloped writing over the years, as I practiced and practiced.  But I always felt like writing was wide open to me, in a way that no other medium could really fulfil.  I learned how to read pretty early, and from then on I felt like words were a tool where the only ceiling was my own ability to use them.  With just a pen or a blinking word processor, I could go anywhere and meet anyone I wanted to, enjoy anything and anyone I wanted to.  I didn’t need expensive materials, or anyone to drive me anywhere.  I didn’t need my frustratingly little hands to be able to learn techniques to emulate what was going on in my head.  I knew how to talk, therefore I knew how to use words to communicate… therefore I could make any world I could fathom.

But that’s just why I liked writing itself, not why my fiction was worth writing.  But that I summed up pretty well through character dialogue I wrote when I was a teenager:
“I like creating something out of nothing, a life where there wasn’t one before… And, I want to make a difference in the world.  I want to make a lasting influence on someone’s life.  I want to share deep messages about inner wars of mind and soul.  I want a chance to explore the beauty of the human spirit… That all sounds kind of stupid, doesn’t it?”

That’s still why I love writing fiction, but it still all sounds kind of stupid to me, which is a euphemism for vulnerable and embarrassing.  And this story might be my most vulnerable and embarrassing of all, which believe me is saying something for my fiction.

Bebe poof Calise on the left, held by Daddy, along with Big Sister.   Always enjoyed being a poof.

I’ve loved fairies since I was itty bitty.  My first ever story, at three years old, was about a cat named “Hay” and his struggle for identity… i.e. he got mad because the farmer said “I’m gonna shovel hay” and Hay misinterpreted it as himself.  So a fairy had to come, deus ex machina, and explain what straw was, and save the day.  It might have been mostly so I could draw a picture of a fairy.  Fairies made everything better.

So many of the doll stories I’d play growing up were about fairies, or mermaids, and their magical exotic sparkly worlds with wings and color-coding.  Fern Gully was my favorite movie, and Crysta was my imaginary friend, and we’d babysit her little sister I made up, and I’d teach flying lessons to my stuffed Big Bird by jumping off chairs.  I’d sing on swings and make up songs about flying… Which I’d sing at the top of my lungs, wanting to be noticed 🤦‍♀️, to the annoyance of my friends who would tell me to stop.

Big Sister and Calise as fairies.  I’m probably about 4 here. 
Man, I hate that 1993 haircut so bad.

I loved the idea of diverse kinds or categories of fairies.  Omigosh, what I would have given for Disney’s 3D Tinker Bell series as a kid! (Or Sofia the First, whom I still relate to, too much.)  I had to settle for one of the few kids VHSs at our little video rental store, about a fairy world and the little girl who got sucked into it.  Kids would make wishes with little rhymes, and then a fairy categorized to their need would show up to help.  I loved how, in fairy stories, everyone seemed to have a job, a place in the world that was uniquely theirs to help in.  Little did I know what a prelude to Type Specializations that was.

But as I grew up, I wanted to write more realistically, and “grittily”.  (So edgy, I know.)  Fairies transitioned to medieval fantasy, and kings and princesses.  But I was never very good at gritty, not in a vacuum anyway.  And it wasn’t really what made me happy to write.

15, wearing the medieval fantasy dress and cape my mom made for me, to a Christmas dance. (Same dress I wore as Galadriel here.)  I loved it so much but felt so embarrassed wearing it.  I got asked if I was supposed to be Egyptian…

I loved situational comedy and coming of age drama, coming from a childhood of watching Saved by the Bell, Boy Meets World, Lizzie McGuire and Kim Possible.  So as a teenager I started writing coming-of-age-sitcom-fantasy-romance… because that’s a genre, right?  (Well in the age of the internet, everything is a genre lol.)

And as weird and random as that was, it seemed I was pretty good at it.  My friends were very supportive (something I didn’t always reciprocate, as I could get a little snobby about writing), and lots of them read my goofy, but very important to me, novel about a teenaged prince who was heir to the throne but couldn’t get a date.  And I got them to laugh!  And said they felt like they knew the characters, which elated me.  Because I knew the characters, and they’d come to be some of my closest friends through those awkward teen years.

That was the story I’d always expected to share with the public first, my beloved, revamped version of Prince Ellic of Dallania, which had accidentally ended up mirroring my own love story.

I didn’t expect to go back to fairies instead.  Barry Anderson was a spin-off from a modern teenaged version of Pinocchio I started in late high school (around 2005)—a teenaged boy made of wood who has to earn his right to be a man; his version of “a real boy.”  I feel like that sounds dumb when I describe it, but it was actually decent.  Actually the above quoted “Creating something out of nothing” dialogue was Nock, teenage Pinocchio, speaking.  Plus I liked noses.  There was a lot of nose humor.

17, first semester away at college, embarrassed selfie. Callous loved that edgy purple and black bracelet, I should try and find another one like it.

But noses weren’t the only thing I had a bit of an obsession with, nor the most embarrassing to me.  One of the few things I loved more than fairies since childhood, was men in women’s clothing… or bodies.

I’ve discussed this several times on the internet, and this probably isn’t the time or place to discuss how I figured out over the course of 30 years that I’m not actually gay, despite finding men in women’s clothes or bodies hot.  (Well, I’m not attracted to women in women’s bodies, for one, heh.)  Sometimes I like to say to my friends “I’m not gay, just kinky.”

But really saying that is just a cover for how deeply guilty I’ve felt over the course of my life for caring about complex gender-oriented exploration and plot lines I worry that will piss off literally everyone.

When you try to explore universe sweeping topics with complexity and without straw men, you’re likely to get both sides mad at you.

This story isn’t politically correct, toward either side of anything.  I happen to believe that politically correct humor is dangerous, in a similar way to how straw man humor is dangerous.  I find that both extremes of the political aisle attempt to censor the other, in a way that means things fester and grow faker with each passing day.  And I consider political correctness to be just another, more passive aggressive, type of censorship.

Censoring people’s words doesn’t change their minds; only being real and open can do that, if people want to change at all.

Reaction to being told there’s a rainbow lens flare on the camera, age 30.  Maybe I’m a mix between a fairy and a leprechaun.  No short jokes please.

I’m not going to preach anything at you, from either pulpit.  I only want to explore complexity via realistic characters making decisions and reacting to things.  There are no villains in this story.  There are less likable people, and people who are various levels of wrong.  Those two categories aren’t necessarily overlapped.  Barry Anderson can be such an idiot, and I couldn’t love him more.

So this is just an exploration of people, of gender, and what selfness even means.  Since those are really loaded topics, I won’t hold it against you if you choose not to read.

If you’re likely to get offended by a story where a boy magically sprouts breasts sometimes (okay, often), then it’s okay to leave.  If you’re likely to get triggered by a story that implies that gender exists, then this story isn’t for you either.

That being said, from tester audiences of close friends, this goofy little story of mine brings up feels in people way more than I anticipated, which I hope is a good thing.  It seems to be much more effective as a literary empathizing invoker than I thought it would be.  So although I think reading and watching media that take us on emotional journeys is helpful, be warned if you do decide to embark.  You are in good company if you react differently than you expected, to my silly little fairy story.

This is definitely not the story I anticipated posting first on the internet, for so many reasons.  I mean firstly it’s about fairies and fairy godmothers.  It’s really really silly.  There’s a whole lore with types of magic, but there’s also way too many descriptions of transformation sequences, ala Cinderella or Sailor Moon.  There’s wands and magic, and a lot of purple.  It’s hardly the story I’d share if my main intent was to be taken seriously.

Sofia the First, Halloween 2016 (27 yrs old).  I’ve gotten better at owning costumes, even if I still feel a little embarrassed.  Here have an embarrassing video with me singing.

But also, despite my repeated admissions of gender-flipped fascination, this is the first time I’ve ever shared something quite this scandalous on the wider internet.  Despite not having any actual sex in it (as opposed to my Freaky Friday-esque, husband and wife, body-swapped, romantic comedy novel, which I do not intend to share with the internet), this story deals very openly with both gender and sexuality, from the point of view of a teenage boy who desperately does not want the ability to turn into a teenage fairy girl.  It has a lot of boob humor, and awkwardness.

I have friends and family of such divergent backgrounds, socially, culturally, religiously, and politically, and I’m honestly much more terrified of anyone I know reading this, than complete internet strangers.  Because this story is so not culturally endorsed by most people of my in-person acquaintance, especially family.

I think Barry Anderson is a tasteful story, and talks about topics that usually get either hidden or yelled about—I hate it when important topics about who people are and how they tick, turn into either taboos, or lobby-bait.  But it’s weird.  It’s a weird little premise, that I think I turn into something pretty darn meaningful.

Sixteen-year-old Barry Anderson’s search for who the crap he is, while his life is going the opposite direction from what he thought he wanted, and everyone is trying to tell him who they think he “should” be, is a journey I think everyone can relate to.  And like I said before, he’s really such an idiot about it sometimes, which I think most of us can relate to more than we’d like, such as dishonestly putting forward an image of ourselves, because we don’t think anyone will want who we really are.

Like how I’d prefer to not admit to people who know me that I write scandalous fiction, or like to write about boys with boobs, but sometimes there’s more important things than what makes us feel comfortable.  And I think sharing Barry is one of those things.

Fairies, in their world of over-the-top sparkly, glittery, fluttery, prettiness, clashed with the story of a boy who wants nothing but to put his head down and be as normal as possible (serious INFJ(ej) Hercules Syndrome), makes for a piece of fiction that I’ve attempted to make both satirical and serious, both humorous and heartfelt.  It’s coming-of-age-sitcom-fantasy-romance at my very best, and for the world of embarrassment it heaps upon me, I couldn’t be prouder of it.

Five-year-old Calise played fairies with her Krystal Princess dolls, and nervously stole glances at her bedroom door, feeling terribly guilty for pretending that one of the fairies was really a boy turned into a girl, and enjoying him squirm with embarrassment.

It was this one by the way; one of my favorites.  And no, the irony of it being the rainbow one is not lost on me.

But somehow, even after relating that story in a post talking about my lifelong gender fixations, in 2014, I didn’t realize that was exactly the premise I started writing in 2016 when I finally jotted down the first couple snippets of Barry, until like the beginning of 2020 🤦‍♀️.  Apparently this story was 25 years in the making and I didn’t even notice.

Little Calise would be very proud, and very embarrassed.  But I think she’d also think grown-up Calise was pretty darn cool for being an adult who writes about both fairies and silly things happening to boys, without being too ashamed to share it.  Because fairies (and making boys squirm) still make everything better.

If after all those disclaimers, you still want to read, then please enjoy
Barry Anderson:

Barry Anderson – Chapter One