Rebel, The Writer, Comes To Substack

From nickname to pseudonym; from occasional hobby to daily craft

Just a close-up - © Marie A. Rebelle

Imagine a little girl, always fantasizing and dreaming about other worlds, and penning those for school assignments. That girl grew into a teenager, who sadly knew too much about sex due to abuse. From about ten years old, those stories she invented always had a light erotic cloak around them. She acted them out, didn’t dare to write them down, until she was fourteen years old.

Her love for reading started at a young age, and writing soon followed in its footsteps.

My name evolved

That little girl grew into a person who did things her way, and her way wasn’t always the way of others. She was a bit of a rebel, without being too obvious about it.

Because of this, it was a natural to call myself ‘Rebel’ when chatrooms became a thing. The name carried into all my online activities after that.

Somewhere in 2012, I wanted to submit a story for an anthology submission call, I wanted a proper author name, but I wanted ‘rebel’ to be reflected somewhere in the pen name. Someone suggested the first name, Marie, and it immediately felt familiar. Of course, this was because my given name is Antoinette, and we all know about Marie Antoinette of France and her tragic history.

My pseudonym became Marie A. Rebelle, and it still fits me like a glove.

Who is Marie A. Rebelle?

I’m a woman, a wife, a mother, a daughter.

I’m a colleague, a friend and a lover.

Born and raised in South Africa, I turned 50 in 2017, live in the Netherlands (since 1994), and in my professional life I work in finance. I was a manager until 2018, but because of a mental breakdown after the passing of my mom in 2017, I took a step back from management.

This is not because I’m someone who easily gives up. It’s because I push on and push through, no matter what, and then realize (almost) too late something needs to happen or I will break.

I am strong, and eventually stepping back from (potentially) harmful situations is not a sign of weakness. Besides being a strong person, I’m also highly driven and motivated, righteous and fair, supportive and respectful, and an empath.

In my personal life, I am married to the love of my life, and we have three adult children, and two grandchildren.

My writing history

From the time of primary school, I reveled in writing essays in Afrikaans and English, and my love for that continued into high school.

I read every book I could put my hands on, and by the time I was fourteen, my love for reading and writing married and I wrote my first novel. It was hand-written — a story about an abduction in the desert, and the sexy things that happened when the young woman in captivity fell in love with her captor, a sheikh. There was as much erotica in the novel as a fourteen-year-old could dream up, which is much tamer than the stories I wrote in later years.

In my twenties, busy raising children, I didn’t get to write, but I dreamed up stories all the time. By the time I turned thirty, I put pen to paper again. The last year I lived in South Africa was horrible, and that was the first book I wrote and self-published. The next year, I wrote the second — the story of a dear friend, who passed away from AIDS in 1999.

My love for writing came flooding back, and I started writing shorter stories again. I wanted a place to share them, which is how my blog, Rebel’s Notes, was born. It’s in honor of the blog I don’t have anymore, but which allowed me to develop my writing and discover myself as a person, that I have given this space the same name.

I haven’t stopped writing since, but it’s not only fiction anymore.

What and why do I write?

All words I write are my own, unless otherwise mentioned. All feelings and thoughts I write about are real and unfiltered. I write about my fears, my excitement, my nervous moments, my victories, and my failures. I write about my grief for my mom, about missing her, and about my (mental) health. 

Everything I share, I do so in all honesty. If my words can help one person out there, it makes me happy.

That is one reason, but mainly I write because I have to. It’s so part of my core, I cannot imagine my life without it anymore. It takes up a big part of my day — I am at the laptop every evening, reading the work of others, or writing. Every weekend — Saturday and Sunday — I write.

What can you expect to find here?

I will post a new article 2–3 times a week, and one of those will be a summary article of my writing of the previous week, here and on Medium. The other(s) will be (erotic) fiction or something from my life. I might even share the occasional note reflecting a moment from my life.

I have plans of writing about my life, from my birth until now. My life has known many twists and turns, some of them stranger than fiction. I want to write about all of those for myself, but also for my children. You see, I know a lot about my parents’ lives, but ever since they both passed away, I realized I still know too little. I don’t want my kids to stay behind with the same feeling once my life ends.

Want to know more about Marie?

I always say: I’m just me.

I’m of average height, slightly overweight (forever working on that!), and when you see me walking down the street, there is nothing that would immediately distinguish me from any other person. Maybe you notice my blondish-grey hair, or my round bottom, or maybe even my small breasts or tattoos. Sometimes I wear a short skirt, sometimes a long dress, other times pants with sturdy shoes.

© Marie A. Rebelle

If you see me, I am ‘just another woman’. I don’t have a label stuck on me that says erotic writer or kinky soul, just as there are no labels married or mother to be seen.

Nothing on the outside will tell you who I really am. However, if you read my words, you will get to know more about me, the way I also get to know myself through writing.

Thank you for joining me on this new journey here on Substack. I hope you enjoy it as much as I know I will!

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