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.

The Author's Gift List

Let's get in the gift-giving mood this year with our first December holidays roundtable.

What would be the top item on your wish list for this year to help you become a better writer? 

Lainey Kennedy: A good dedicated group of fellow writers to keep me accountable and to talk through ideas with. All my friends who used to do this in real life are now super busy.

Scott Roche: Sponsorship to go to a GOOD workshop.

HC Playa: Hmm, more hours in a day 😂. More realistically, using some vacation time for writing days.

John L. Taylor: A new laptop (NOT a Chromebook, those are trash for word processing).

Danielle Procter Piper: Time. I lost a tremendous amount of personal time after the auto accident I was in back in January. I need things to settle so I can work on my craft again. 

Jason Bullock: A "Thank You." So many times we as writers are supporting ourselves, our families, aspiring creatives, all of those around us but often never get a simple "Thank You." This simple positive social convention fills each of us with a feeling of love and community. I try to say "Thank You" to everyone who has given me their support in all that I do. I also would gladly say "Your Welcome" to anyone whose simple gift of thanks fills up both our lives with positive energy.

David Wright: Time.

Sean Taylor: Energy. I need energy to write all the stuff that keeps popping into my story-making-machine (my brain, I hope). So many ideas. So little time. I'm a special ed teacher as well as a writer, and when I get home, I'm pretty much emotionally and mentally wiped out, so writing becomes more of a chore than the adventure it used to be. So, yeah, energy... particularly emotional and mental energy.

Krystal Rollins: Time, discipline and a role model

If you could give anything to a beginning writer to help them on their path, what would it be?

Jason Bullock: A strong sharpened pencil and a lined notebook. Every one of us needs to connect to the origins of all those imaginings, aspirations, and illuminations that we want to share in our storytelling. No matter how technical we become in our mediums to tell those stories, analog, digital, virtual, or even neural, everything begins with putting pencil to paper to ignite the spark we hope to share with everyone around us.

Scott Roche: The book on how to write a novel using the snowflake method.

Krystal Rollins: For a new writer? Journal all the time. 

Danielle Procter Piper: Help them figure out what their ultimate goal is. Do you just want to share your stories, are you expecting movies and merchandising? Something in the middle or something else entirely? If you just want to share, would you consider sites that allow readers to access your work for free without pressure on you? If you want movies would you consider learning screenwriting instead of how to format a short story or novel? Once you know your goal, you can aim for it and save a lot of time. By the way, yes you DO actually have to know how to write well no matter if it's a comic book script, TV commercials, teleplays, poetry, whatever. Most editors and agents will not waste their time on you if you cannot spell and don't comprehend basic grammar or lack cohesion. It is NOT someone else's job to take your splatter of misspelled words and clean it up into a polished masterpiece. You DO need to know how to translate your ideas into comprehensible reading material and prove you're dedicated to improving yourself as a writer. 

David Wright: Marketing support.

Lainey Kennedy: A journal and the idea that you should journal about your projects from a personal/emotional standpoint as much as working directly on the story.

Sean Taylor: I would wish all authors, beginning or old-timers, a renewed vigor for the work. To me, that's the most important thing, you have to want to put your butt in a chair and churn out the words. 

John L. Taylor: A subscription to Writer's Digest and a creative writing correspondence course. I started that way. 

HC Playa: A tutorial on grammar and punctuation and a guide on creative writing (like On Writing by King or any number of similar books). Heck, maybe even this one: Giddy and Euphoric.

Now, just for fun, what's your favorite holiday-themed story or novel? Why?

David Wright: The Santa monster hunter story by James Palmer. 

HC Playa: I have to admit that other than Dickens' A Christmas Carol I can't say I have read that many holiday-themed stories.

That said, a few of the series I have read have done holiday-themed short stories.

One that comes to mind takes place in Sherrilyn McQueen's Dark Hunter universe. You have all these badass, scary, often solitary folks that have survived all kinds of trauma, deal with the worst kinds of evil, and a few maybe made a pact with a certain red-headed goddess to serve her for eternity in exchange for their soul and a single act of vengeance.

In spite of all that you get this glimpse of people creating joy and family, giving to each other b/c they know what it's like to have nothing.

A lot of the holiday shorts authors do can feel a bit cheesy or feel like they don't quite fit the world that has been built. This one (and to be honest I read it years ago and while I can tell you it takes place in Sanctuary before the dragon upstairs found his mate, and possibly before or around the time the wolves found theirs, I honestly can't recall the name of the short story, only that it felt a natural extension of the universe while simultaneously conveying both the loneliness people can feel at the holidays and the joy that can happen when we include others and give selflessly. That, IMO is what the season is about.

Lainey Kennedy: I’m a sucker for A Christmas Carol!

Danielle Procter Piper: I don't know what my favorite holiday story is...but I remain haunted by "The Little Match Girl" which is a sad and painfully brief moment from the life of an innocent child forced to work in abysmal conditions while longing for something better.

John L. Taylor: Roads by Seabury Quinn. It's an origin story for Santa Claus and is surprisingly original for the era (written in the 1930s) yet totally relevant to the religious aspect of Christmas.

Krystal Rollins: I do have a favorite Christmas carol: "O Holy Night."

Sean Taylor: I'm with you on this one, Danielle. "The Little Match Girl" is my favorite holiday story in spite of it's tragic-ness. Something about it is simply haunting, as you said. I'm also a sucker for How the Grinch Stole Christmas, which I've always considered the second greatest redemptive holiday story. "Maybe Christmas,' he thought, 'doesn't come from a store -- Maybe Christmas -- perhaps -- means a little bit more.'" And I recently discovered a fun haunted house story by Charles Dickens called "The Haunted House" (how original, right?) It was part of his "scary ghost stories" tales as referenced in the Christmas song "The Most Wonderful Time of the Year."

Jason Bullock: I don't really have a favorite holiday-themed story or novel. So many of the stories that I have read bleed across the months in character's lives that eventually if you follow their story all the special moments of their lives are laid bare for the reader to see.

Scott Roche: Christmas With the Kranks.