Disclaimer – All the information provided in this blog post contains emotionally personal experiences. This information is relevant to no one in particular and is a way to allow readers to get to know Shelly Anne Claire as more than an author. The purpose of this blog post is to hopefully allow readers to gain insight into the type of person I am and how I began my journey.
All contents in the blog post are accurate at the time of posting.
*Tap tap tap* Is this thing on? Hi, my name is Shelly Anne Claire and I’m an independently published Australian author. I don’t particularly like long walks on the beach, and sunsets are over hyped.
I do however love cheese and enjoy staying at home inside where I can avoid the entire population 🙂 Currently I’m rewatching the early seasons of Supernatural while eating a tomato-based pasta (yes with two types of cheese) while one cat sleeps on the couch opposite me and the other is goddess knows where. I don’t hear anything breaking so that’s a good sign I’ll still have a house in good condition.
I wasn’t too sure where to begin this months blog post. Especially since this is the first official post of my new website! There is so much to say and so little at the same time. Maybe because I know everything about myself everything seems so boring and insignificant. But you know nothing about me, do you? Well then, let’s start from the beginning. If you’ve made it this far and have only felt mild annoyance – just you wait, it gets worse.
Blame it on my star sign.
The start of my story started in 2020 whilst I was attending University. Believe it or not I was studying a Bachelor of Human Services at this time. All throughout my High School education I knew I didn’t want to attend University. It’s ridiculously expensive and I hadn’t entered the adult world yet – I needed time to figure out who I was without committing to a HECS debt.
Unfortunately that only lasted four years. Then why, if I knew I didn’t want to go to University, did I attend? Truthfully and regretfully I enrolled with a friend. If I knew then what I knew now I would have said no and saved myself the financial headaches and the educational headaches.
But if I didn’t, who would I have become? Would I have still written a book? Would I be sitting here right now typing a blog post for my website?
It’s hard to know the answers to these types of questions. I think somehow, someway I would have found my way here. I had always been a creative soul. Throughout high school I went from studying music in grade 8 and 9, to transitioning to drama in grade 10, back to music in grade 11 and visual arts in between. I wanted to create something. To reach deep inside myself and pull out all the bits and pieces of my soul that begged to be shown to the world. I didn’t know how. All I knew is I hated the academics. I was no mathematician. I was no literature genius (the irony is not lost on me now haha). Science wasn’t even an option. I spent most lessons at the back of the class goofing of with my friends. Don’t even get me started on P.E. Although I did enjoy volleyball in grade 12 and was one of the best strikers on our team. Not to mention I got a couple second place medals in shotput in the sports carnival.
It only took being beat once for me to give up and with that my attention drifted elsewhere.
I started with music. I loved music, from Lady Gaga to Motionless in White – I didn’t have a preference and loved all genres. I was very much an emo kid, always going to concerts and scrolling on Tumblr. But while music gave me an emotional outlet it didn’t fill my hunger for more.
And I wanted more.
I couldn’t sing. My vocal range sounded worse than a blender filled with ice, so maybe I could learn an instrument. I tried piano, specifically keyboard. I even inherited an old keyboard from my uncle and surprisingly I enjoyed playing it. I didn’t understand the keys and ended up writing numbers and letters on each key. I felt like a fake. Like I was cheating. What kind of musician doesn’t understand their own instrument? What kind of musician doesn’t know how to read their own music?
I gave it one last chance. Maybe, maybe I could do it if I tried harder. Maybe I wasn’t doing it right. I ended up buying instruments, from acoustic guitars to electric bass’ all the way to electric guitars, amps and even an effects pedal. I gave up on piano and moved to bass guitar. Standard guitar was too confusing for me. The chords made me fumble. Even then I never got the hang of it. My brain couldn’t make sense of music. It made me feel like I was reading musical math.
Surely this time it would be different. This was my dream, right? To write songs and make music?
‘No it isn’t.’
That little voice in my head was right. After writing a song on the keyboard and even going as far to have it produced with a friend doing the vocals, I gave up on my dream of being a musician. Split from the band I had formed with some friends and pushed it away.
I was feeling hopeless at this point. Defeated. Until I decided to try again a year later. This time with visual arts. A few friends and I enrolled in the class together because it was high school and that’s what you did. You followed the crowd and did what your friends did. I thought I was older, wiser and knew music wasn’t my creative calling so visual arts must be. And with my friends being in the same class it was perfect!
I might have been older and wiser, but I was still a kid. Sixteen-year-old me had a long way to go yet.
I couldn’t draw. I couldn’t paint. I couldn’t sculpture or come up with these great artist designs that would be displayed in the schools art gallery. I soon gave up on visual arts. I did end up doing it until I graduated high school, but it was either that or academics and there’s no way I’m making myself feel anymore of a laughing stock than I already felt.
In the time I began to lose my passion for the creatives. I had failed so many times I didn’t see a reason to keep losing confidence in myself. I wanted to feel good about myself. I wanted to feel smart. So once again I focused my attention on something new.
Fast forward and I had successfully completed over twelve qualifications by the time I graduated. I studied in business, tourism, workplace healthy and safety – a whole wide range of things. It took up the majority of my time and gave me something to work towards. I felt smart. I felt good enough. I felt like a kid whose parents were proud of them. I felt like I had given my parents a reason to brag about me.
I eventually found out there was an award in my high school given to a stupid who had the highest amount of points. All I had to do was study a certificate or do a traineeship, get good grades, and get enough QCE points. I don’t remember all the fiddly details anymore but what I do remember is busting my ass and forcing myself to gain those twelve qualifications. Each one gave me a different amount of points and in order to get the award all I needed was 20 points.
I could do that right? Despite everything else I had failed in, I could get 20 stupid points for one stupid award.
I graduated with 56 QCE points. The highest in my entire grade, and to my knowledge ever. I was so proud of myself. Me, who got C’s in most of her classes except for the one year I got all B’s in English, got the highest amount of points. Me, who wasn’t academically intelligent and could never find her passion, had people in my grade cheering for me, supporting me. Me, who was a nobody, who meant nothing, had support.
It was the happiest time of my high school life. I couldn’t wait for the announcement of the award winner – me! I knew one other girl in my grade was going for it but there was no use. I had over 36 more points then her, was studying three courses at once, and had every other qualification I needed to be in the running.
Well announcement day comes. I’m sitting amongst my grade, and I can feel my face becoming hot in anticipation. At this point all my friends were sharing secret smiles with me. I could feel the popular students, and people I wasn’t friends with turning and looking at me, knowing I was going to win. And then they announce the two contestants. The first girl who had 20 points, and me who had 56 (though they said I only had 52 but I let it slide because it was still impressive).
At this point everyone is looking at me because we all had the same thought – this award is mine.
Then they announce the winner.
Clapping ensures.
Everyone turns to look at me in confusion.
‘Why aren’t you going up there?’ They asked.
I can’t meet there eyes. I stare up at the stage, not moving from my seat and feel the disappointment, the failure set in. It was such a familiar feeling by now I didn’t even cry.
I lost.
I lost.
How could I lose?
Her brothers and her were academic champions. Her mum was on the P and C, and her family financially supported the school. She did a traineeship. The one thing I didn’t have time to do because I was so busy studying for the first time in my schooling career.
I don’t remember much about what happened after that. I didn’t study again. I finished my courses, graduated with my high school certificate and that was it. I barely scraped past with C’s in all my classes, with the exception of B’s in English. My spare lessons that were used for studying my courses were now for mucking around and wasting time.
I stopped caring. I gave up.
Fully, wholly, and finally gave up.
Eventually I joined the workforce and high school was behind me. Fast forward and suddenly I was enrolling in University. I had to enroll in a random course because I didn’t have a high enough score. I tried a semester in one course and struggled academically. I got low marks, brutal feedback and had never felt more stupid before in my life. The friend I enrolled with was smarter than me and she was doing great. Me on the other hand? I was just the friend dumb enough to think she stood a chance.That should have been my first red flag. Somehow through this journey I ended up studying a Bachelor of Fine Arts majoring in Creative Writing.
I lasted a semester before I dropped out. This time though, not for the reason you might assume. I loved creative writing. I thought back to my days in English class writing short essay stories and a poem I had called ‘Thunder Eyes’. the last two years of high school I received on B’s in that class. I didn’t realise then that it had been my creative calling all along. I loved English but I deemed it as academic and therefore didn’t give it much thought.
But here I was sitting in a university class writing a story. Not just any story. This story would become a chapter one for an assignment. That assignment would spark an idea. That idea would become a chapter two. That chapter two would then turn into a book. Throughout my first semester the first bones of my book were being written. I thought I was going to fail again like I had done in music, in visual arts. But I kept going because despite myself I’m human and we are all filled with endless amounts of hope.
So I continued to hope. To dream. To doubt. To give up. To try again. To fail. To succeed. I continued and never stopped regardless of the outcome. Even after I dropped out, I continued. I took a three month break here and a six-month break there. I couldn’t believe this was happening, that I was investing all this time into writing a stupid story.
But it wasn’t stupid.
It was infinite.
Two years later that book became my first published debut A Vault of Nine Lives.
And here I am. A soon-to-be published author.
Who would have thought? Certainly not me that’s for sure. Even now, after I holding a finished, edited book in my hands I don’t believe its real. Or that its special. How could I when there are hundreds, thousands of authors out there who are better than me?
Well, it is real. And the sixteen-year-old Shelly would be proud of where I am today – of where she’ll end up one day. She found her calling. She found herself. She found her heart amongst the pages of her own book.
I don’t do this for me. I do this for her. She couldn’t live her dream all those years ago but now I can, and I live it for the both of us.
I guess the point of this story, if there even is one, is that I’m still nothing special but to the younger version of myself, I’m the greatest thing alive and that’s enough to keep me writing. I don’t expect to ever be some big shot author one day, and I’m okay with that. I only ever want to share my stories, to create beautiful books and share them with the world.
I get to do that now because the adult me works hard for the kid me.
So I guess that’s me. I’m always going to be that kid with a dream. Only now I’m an adult with the means to make it a reality. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still a kid. Really. I’m only five in adult years and I’m far from perfect. I’ll be figuring out my life for the rest of my life. I’ll continue to change, to grow. But most importantly, I’ll get to share it with my kid self and I’m so excited for her, in some other multiverse, to get to this place in a few years.
It’ll be worth it – I promise.
If you read this far, thank you. I hope you feel like you know me a little better. I didn’t want to waste a post on talking about my favourite colours or my favourite animals. That’s all-surface level stuff and it’s boring as hell. Why not jump straight in to the emotional turmoil and trauma bond with me?
Have any questions about this months post or want to get in contact with me? I’m active on a range of social media platforms, feel free to connect with me there!
Until next month, thank you for reading.
