From the Backlist: Alone is not Lonely

 

Art by by_zhixorris_

Welcome to another post in the Supernatural Underground Backlist Series. Today's feature is from July 2015 by Amanda Arista. Here she talks about the essentials of writing 'alone' and what that might mean. 

Is alone always lonely? 

Let's explore this together! 

✍🏼 The Sup

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Alone is not Lonely

by Amanda Arista

Year of Living Authentically: A writer is never alone.

I was a kid who spent a lot of time alone, but looking back, there are very few times I felt lonely. Even as early as third grade, I would choose to be writing or reading, rather than socializing and that's probably why I don't have the suave social skill of my little brother who loved to be in the crowd. I had the people in my books and the people in my head and a family who took me to the library every week. 

As I grew up and life got decidedly less fun, I would retreat into the world in my books and the people in my head. While others were boozing away their Thursday nights in collage, I was curled up with a spiral notebook creating the world that would become Diaries of an Urban Panther. I have characters in my head who have been with me longer than some friends.

I teach as part of a writing program and we are always talking about building your writing tribe and finding others who speak your language. I talk about the synergy of writing with a group of people and the relief that comes when someone else gets a 'Call to Adventure' joke. How finding others who share your passion for writing is one of the best things a writer can do.

But fundamentally, writing is an alone process. It is you and your story and maybe a cup of coffee. Writing isn't lonely. You have characters who are making you as you are making them, but the process is not a communal one. You have experiences that you crafting for others to live, but you can not share in the creation because it is creating you as you go. The writer you on page one  is not the same writer you as the one who finishes the manuscript. You have been changed. You know more about yourself than you did on page one and that change is just as important as the one on the hero went through.

Writing is an intrinsic force that almost demands you shut yourself away from the outside world to focus on the internal one. Writers are stereotyped as hermits, because hermitting is a natural reaction to the need to form a cocoon around yourself so change can happen.  I haven't met a writer yet that doesn't fantasize about cabins in the woods or cabanas on the beach where they can just "be" with their stories.  

I advocate both. Find quite time. Find a ritual that takes you to that internal world and spend lots of time there. Get your story on the page before you share it. But then, find flesh-and-blood humans you can talk to this stuff about, who you can share this process with, who understand the desire to hide under a blanket because change is hard: writing is hard. Find those who understand that a first draft is a new creation, fragile and still hardening its wings, and will respect it as they do their own. 

So when you see that girl in the coffee shop with her over-the-ear headphones typing away at something, instead of making a big show of 'why does she even come here if she's just going to take up a table on a Saturday afternoon,' give her a knowing smile, so she doesn't feel lonely, but let her be alone. She's already got a table full of friends, and maybe an enemy, and there is magic happening right before your eyes. 

Until next time, YOLA!

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Amanda Arista

Author, Diaries of an Urban Panther

www.amandaarista.com

From The Backlist: "The Writer's Paradox" by Tera Lynn Childs

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We're all writers and readers here, so a writer's paradox holds perennial appeal. Here's the great Tera Lynn Childs' take on the theme -- enjoy!

The Writer's Paradox

by Tera Lynn Childs

Writers are crazy. There's no getting around the fact that (at times) we're completely neurotic, insecure, and borderline bat$#!%; crazy. I used to think that writing attracted unstable personalities, but now I'm pretty sure the Writer's Paradox is to blame.

You have to think you suck, otherwise you will.

When I started writing I thought I was a fairly sane person. I thought I was in control of my own emotions, at least as much as anyone is, and there was no way I would be as crazy as those writers on TV and in movies. Guess what? I was wrong.

This is what happens when you search for crazy on Flickr.

Over the course of writing and publishing a book, I go through stages of elation where I think, Woohoo, this is going to be the best book ever! (Note: This stage usually occurs before a single word has been written.) I go through meh stages where I think, The book is pretty crappy but I can fix it in revisions. (This is the most common stage.)

And finally I go through stages where I think, I'm a fraud who can't write, I'll never get this book under control, I'll never write anything as good as [fill in name of amazingly talented bestselling author here] and I'll never get another contract again!

This sounds crazy, right? ... The sad thing is--and as writers we kind of just have to accept this as fact--we need that fear ... "

To find out why Tera Lynn reckons writers need that fear, click here.

To learn more about Tera Lynn herself, and the all-important writing, follow this link.

Creative Instincts

Avatar directed by James Cameron

Perfecter and Innovator 

Perfecter

While on a little break - think 10 minutes of flipping through Instagram and checking FB/Tweets - I came across this theory of three creative types. It reminded me of Amanda Arista's Know Thyself and thy brain wiring post and made me wonder what type I was. The theory is simple: We instinctively approach creativity in three general ways.

1. Perfecter — An artist/writer who and maximizes what is, elevating it to the best it can be (think Bach, Mozart, Brahms, Spielberg, James Cameron, Stephen King, Tolkien, Pixar, Disney...)

Innovator

Laini Taylor - Perfecter

2. Innovator — An artist/writer who breaks the mold, pioneering a new style (as in Beethoven, Schoenberg, Kubrick, Picasso, Joyce, Dalí, Le Guin...)

3. Synthesizer — An artist/writer who draws from disparate sources, makes unexpected connections, to create something  new (e.g. Ligeti, Stravinsky, David Lynch, Tarantino, Murakami, Adams...)

Perfecter & Synthesizer

Synthesizer & Innovator

It's interesting to think of the creative process this way,  as an instinctual approach, and I suspect, after pouring through many films and titles, that writers are not one or the other. Like all things involving art, there is a certain blending. 

Categorizing is also dependent on the times. Kill Bill was break-out in 2003. Kubrick's 2001: a Space Odyssey blew minds in 1968. And, back in 1870, Jules Verne altered the course of history with 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. As said by FP Walter:

"... this book has been a source of fascination, surely one of the most influential novels ever written, an inspiration for such scientists and discoverers as engineer Simon Lake, oceanographer William Beebe, polar traveller Sir Ernest Shackleton. Likewise, Dr. Robert D. Ballard, finder of the sunken Titanic, confesses that this was his favourite book as a teenager, and Cousteau himself, most renowned of marine explorers, called it his shipboard bible." 

Kim Wilkens as Synthesizer

China Mieville's 'New Weird' fiction is a genre blender, a synthesizer mixed with innovation and traditional representation. Michael Moorcock explains:

Neil Gaiman as Innovator

Miéville identifies with the “New Weird” movement, a development of what used to be known as “science fantasy” – a blend of the occult and scientific speculation... The New Weird, at its best, combines the virtues of visionary fiction and horror fiction, political satire, literary fiction and even historical fiction

Helen Lowe's Wall of Night series reads perfecter to me, elevating but also synthesizer with the feel of more contemporary themes and subtext. 

When I think about my process writing the Quantum Enchantment Series, I relate most to Synthesizer. It's a been called Science Fantasty blend. With The Blood in the Beginning, I align more with Perfecter, taking what I love most about the Urban Fantasy genre and giving it new wings (or make that fins). My YA Fantasy, The Bone Throwers, out September 2018 under the pen name AK Wilder, if anything, it might be innovation. My instincts were to bring together a traditional coming of age with a premise never seen before. We'll see when the jury (the readers) verdict is in.

How about you? I'd love to hear from other Sup authors and readers about their process and their favorite creative works. Films? Books? Plays? What's blown your mind recently?

xxKim

Kim Falconer's latest release comes out in 2018 The Bone Throwers, book one in the Amassia series, writing as A K Wilder. Find her new page on Facebook - AKWilder Author and on Twitter as AKWilder.

Her latest novel is out now - The Blood in the Beginning - and Ava Sykes Novel.

Learn more about Kim on Facebook and chat with her on Twitter. Check out her pen name, @a.k.wilder on Instagram, or visitAKWilder on FB and website.

Kim also runs GoodVibeAstrology.com where she teaches the law of attraction and astrology. 

Kim posts here at the Supernatural Underground on the 16th of every month, hosts Save the Day Writer's Community on FB and posts a daily astrology weather report on Facebook.