Discovering Yourself In and Through Your Writing

Just one question for this next writer roundtable.

Flannery O'Connor wrote, “I write to discover what I know" and “I write because I don’t know what I think until I read what I say.”

How has being a writer and telling stories helped you discover who you are and what you know?

Nikki Nelson-Hicks: Very interesting question. For me, some of my stories have helped me to touch on emotions that I didn't realize I had inside. Very much poking a blister and letting some stuff ooze out. I have also enjoyed creating characters who have the bravery I wish I had. That's also very insightful.

Jessica Nettles: Being a writer as a kid helped me embrace my differences from the other kids at school. It gave me a space where it didn’t matter that I was the youngest or the smallest or weird. It was the first thing I felt confident was mine.

As an adult, it helped me rediscover myself after a really shitty marriage in my twenties. I found this spooky girl in the middle of the debris who needed to explore the darkness, my darkness. I learned my dark parts were okay and just as important as being good. I love that spooky, magic-loving girl. I learned that I have a voice that people actually enjoy (still shocked by this) and that I’m funny. Mostly, I learned that writing is who I am. I do many things, but at my core, I am my words. That’s my magic.

Lainey Kennedy: Writing has helped me explore the human conditions by creating characters that are both over the top but rooted in little bits of everyone I know. The adventures are the escapism, but the characters are what I know.

Fay Shlanda: My writing has helped me a lot as a person. I write poetry about my relationship with the world around me, which is mostly about mental illness and being broken.

I have discovered that I have much to say on the subject and that overcoming my hardships is something I would not trade in for an easier life. They have shaped me into someone I like and I use my knowledge to help others.

October Santerelli: I wanted to be a writer as soon as I heard it was a job you could have. I was in 7th grade, and I went home that night and told my parents that was what I wanted to do. And after that, writing became a lifeline, a way to express what I couldn't say, feelings I didn't even know I had. Writing helped me understand myself, like holding up a mirror and seeing with fresh eyes.