For years, I sold my voice to the highest bidder
The greatest journey I've ever been on was the one to reclaiming it.
Hey friends,
Today's title is technically a little bit of a misnomer. It also reminds me of The Little Mermaid. That’s totally unintentional. Although I do kind of wish this story had a talking crab.
Alas.
Also, the misnomer is because when I first started writing professionally, I wasn’t even that bothered about the highest bidder. No bargains with sea witches, here, I'd sell my voice to anyone who'd take it.
For example, I got paid $5 for my first ever published article and $5/bio to write backstories for sex dolls. I even spent a while working as a human Google - a bit like this not-actually-AI start-up! - where I got paid per minute to keep people on the app as long as possible.
Almost 15 years on, I get paid more than that for my articles (thankfully), but like Aerial's bargain with Ursula, the price I paid to get here was high, too.
Sure, 15 years of writing other people's stories - and working with editors - has helped make me a better writer, but it came at the cost of my voice. My stories.
Obviously, this is no longer the case, or I'd never have been able to show up here.
But that said, the journey to reclaiming it hasn't been easy. It's taken me years, and I still struggle, sometimes. But the power of this reclamation - and the insights and gifts it's given - have all been worth it.
For example, a lot of the work I do these days revolves around storytelling and helping others own and see the power in their own stories and voices.
Hindsight can be a beautiful thing.
In truth, though, it was only after my mum was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and I was looking for stories like ours that I was able to start seeing the value in my own.
Especially after most of hers were lost. She was never on social media. She hated having her photos taken. We never wrote her stories, videoed her, or recorded her speaking.
The only things I have of her voice or her stories are a handful of emails.
It's this loss that makes me so passionate about the work I do here in the community - especiallly within the writing circles and co-writing group, but also in my writing workshops and 1:1 work, too.
So, today, I wanted to share a bit about this journey and how it's led me to where I am now. I've also decided to share one of my ebooks for my paid subscribers too, for anyone wondering where to start with writing/sharing their own stories.
This is also a story about what happens when dreams come true - but don't always turn out the way you hope - and how our stories (and the way we tell them) can be signposts leading us to where we want to go, even if we don't know it consciously. Yet.
This is my story.
For years, I dreamed of being a travel writer - of leaving my hometown and travelling the world.
I'd always loved travel. I'd been brought up on Bill Bryson and Paul Theroux, my grandparents’ endless travel slides and stories, and had been utterly captivated when I discovered Jack Kerouac and Hunter S. Thompson in my uni years.
I loved seeing the world through someone else's eyes. (Just not my grandma's shaky camcorder viewfinder… Sorry grandma).
I wanted to do the same. To be a part of my work - to weave narratives and personal observations into my words, while rooting it deeply in the kind of cultural and historical insights I'd learned studying for my East Asian Studies degree.
Instead, I ended up mostly writing listicles and puff pieces, centering other people and places.
They were easy wins for me and my editors, especially in this age of diminished attention spans and quick fixes. People don't want to get off a night bus and walk up and down dusty streets asking if anyone has a room like I used to.
They were helpful, and God knows, I like to be helpful.
My experience as a travel agent sealed the deal, too. I knew what travellers wanted and needed to know before going somewhere. It was easy for me to pitch stories and write to that audience. Especially when I needed a paycheck.
That said, I can't blame it entirely on the easy work - or the (not-always-so-easy) money.
A lot of it was confidence, too.
Ever since I was a kid, I'd wanted to write - and share - my own stories.
But I've always been very sensitive, especially to negative feedback. I can still hear my English teacher critiquing my grammar as I'm writing this.
I was also lucky enough to travel a lot. I went on my first exchange trip when I was 11, staying with a Dutch family and going to school in the Netherlands.
After almost 10 years of these trips and my family telling me how much they loved the letters I'd write about them, I figured I was ready to start sharing things with the world.
So, in 2010, I decided to start my first travel blog, chronicling a 3-month solo trip around China and Southeast Asia.
I can't tell you how long I spent in dodgy internet cafes, writing posts and emailing the links out to friends and family.
I was so proud - like I'd finally found my calling.
But then, when I got home, I caught up with a friend who was older and in the media industry. He told me it was terrible and amateur, and I shouldn't have published it, along with a lot of other things.
I was so ashamed that I went home and scrubbed it all from the internet that very same day.
The social cost of sharing my stories didn't help either.
In truth, it’s cost me most of my friends; drawing awareness to the ever-increasing chasm of distance between us and our lives.
I can still feel the white-hot prickle that ran down my back the first time someone said, “Oh, it's alright for some.”
I'd always known I wasn't going to live my life cooped up in my hometown (or homeland), but I never wanted my choices to make anyone else feel bad about theirs.
So, instead of sharing my stories, I’d take a backseat and let other people lead conversations. I even stopped posting much on social media.
When I moved to Cambodia, it was even worse.
My ex saw telling stories as his God-given gift, and my storytelling abilities didn't stand up to his stress test.
He'd give me this look that was his way of saying, “Shut up, you've bored everyone to death and lost them”, and talk over me until I stopped talking much at all.
It was far easier for me just to write everyone else's stories. To pick up on brand voices and what I knew editors wanted, and let them bear the burden of responsibility for publishing them. To let them pass their stress test.
I still wrote for myself, but I rarely shared anything. I had a portfolio, but no website. I squashed down my voice and my dreams. It felt easier that way.
And it was, for a while, at least. Until eventually, the cost of not doing was higher than the cost of doing.
In my case, that was hitting my own polycrisis:
Arriving in Australia just before the pandemic, after 7 years of full-time travel.
Losing my identity as a traveller and my travel writing career in one fell swoop.
My boss at the time firing me and sending me death threats.
Having to spend all my savings on a $10k visa application to stay in a country I'd only intended to visit temporarily.
Not being able to leave said country because of the pandemic and restrictions on my visa.
Having no real friends or support network here other than my partner, who I hadn't even known that long.
My mum being diagnosed with young-onset Alzheimer’s on the other side of the world.
Having to spend hours every day on the phone with her, trying to help her hold the fragments of her mind together as long as I could.
My grandma turning on my whole family and blaming us for my mum's decline.
Social services stepping in and putting her in a home (my mum had been her carer), where she was severely neglected and became catatonic.
I desperately wanted to read stories from others who had been through shitty times. Especially about long-distance caregiving and the realities of adapting to a settled life again after so long living on the road.
I couldn't find much.
So I started writing them and sharing them for others who might have been in similar boats, too - this is how Making Lemonade was born.
As I wrote my own stories and leaned into the transformative power of having them on paper and out of the spirals of my mind, I was also holding my mum's grief of losing all hers.
She'd forgotten everything she'd done with her life and would cry to me on the phone about how she'd wasted it.
This was a catalyst for me to try and help others write and reclaim their stories, too. I started running journalling and writing workshops. I especially wanted to work with people who felt like their stories weren't worth telling.
In those spaces, I realised the transformative powers of our stories lie not just in the stories themselves, but also in the way we tell/write/share them. I saw the power in writing, sharing, and being witnessed in our stories.
This is where The Lemonade Factory was born.
It's funny how running these writing circles for my community has now become a full circle moment for me, but hey, maybe it's just a sign I'm exactly where I'm meant to be.
And yeah, it may have been a hell of a bumpy ride to get here, but I'm so grateful for it, too.
The best adventures are the ones that change you, anyway. When you come back, you don’t want to be the same person who left.
Or I don't, at least.
To end, I'd love to leave you with some questions to ponder.
These are the kind of questions I use as prompts in my writing circles as well as in our twice-weekly co-working calls.
Questions
Have you ever written down your story? Why? Why not?
Have you ever pulled on any of the little threads of your life to see the story/path behind it?
If you look back, can you see how life led you where you are now?
Where do you think you'd like to go next?
What stories/gifts/powers have you already learned from life so far that will help you on your journey to get there?
If you'd like to join the community and write with us, you can find out more here. We have upcoming calls on Monday 9th at 9.30am AWST, Thursday 12th 5pm AWST (10am BST), and Monday 16th at 9.30am AWST.
Our first writing circle will be at the end of June.
Paid members will also gain access to my Journalling as a Tool ebook, as well as a private community chat space for questions, sharing, soundboarding, celebrations, and more.
In the meantime, I’d love to hear from you in the comments. Has reading any of this changed how you feel about your story? Let me know.
All my love,
Cassie
PS: If you enjoy my work or my words, you can:
Join us in The Lemonade Factory.
Sign up for a 1:1 creative mentoring call where we can talk about all of this and more.
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Love an origin story and this one delivers in abundance. Thank you for wearing your heart in your sleeve, Cassie. We need voices like yours 💛