Hot box wine challenge. You’ve got 48 hours….
Cecelia has choices, stay in rock bottom or get the hell out dodge. 3,000 miles, a lot of BBQ, a Mr. Smooth, a metal sculpting surfer, a brother from another mother, and a tortuous three phase plan later… Cecelia finds the strength to confront the demons and change herself for the better.
Tami Hennessy is an artist and a writer from Spokane, WA. She lovingly refers to her mind as HB Sanitarium; a place where all her dark thoughts, images, twisted up feelings, and characters run wild, fueling her creativity.
The Road to Dashboard Jesus started six years ago as a challenge from one of my tribe: Hot Box Wine Challenge...You Got 48 hours… but make it sad.
At that time in my life, I was on a steady fall to rock bottom. My body randomly and without warning was shutting down because I don't process emotions like a normal person...or at all. I wasn't the best human, making my own poor life choices. Choices that inevitably caught up and my life as I knew it blew up. When I finally hit rock bottom, I was utterly broken, hollow, filled with self-loathing, and so very lost. I had to ask myself, how the fuck did I get here and how the fuck do I fix it?
When I need an outlet for my feelings, a safe space, I’ve always turned to writing and art. The original fic, The Tide is High, a Twilight fanfiction, became a place for me to work through my own demons and I started the journey out of the dark as I wove my character. When I had my tribe, so did she. When I began to pull myself out of the dark, heal and stitch myself back together, so did she.
Halfway through writing The Tide is High, I made the decision that one day I would pull and publish. That is the reason I started writing fanfic, my previous writing attempt wasn’t where I wanted it to be and fanfiction was an outlet to boost my confidence and tap the creative juices. It’s been a long road from completed fanfic, various stages of editing, to releasing a version that reflects not only my words but my art.
I accepted my tribe's challenge and conquered! Here is a story of a woman, who is weird like me, who curses like a fucking sailor, likes weird shit, says weird shit, and who loves her meat. A woman damaged by life and with the help of her tribe healed herself in a way that worked for her; nowhere near conventional and sometimes illegal. None of that matters if somewhere, someone out there, who is like CeCe, will read Dashboard Jesus Confessionals and find themselves laughing, crying, but most importantly just getting it. If I can help someone who felt the way I did, the way CeCe did, with my words, I would be so honored.
