novels – Page 10 – By Autumn Rain

Writing from experience

March 14, 2017 Autumn

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Err, sort of . . .

Frankly, this quote frightens me with the prospect that there are people out there who are so boring that they’d only be able to write one book about the life they’ve lived. Couldn’t they at least turn it into a trilogy?

When we’re advised to “write from experience,” we aren’t intended to compose a series of personal anecdotes with stand-in characters for all the people we know. It’s more that if you’ve never been in love, then you probably aren’t going to make a convincing romance author.

Likewise, if you know what it feels like to be betrayed, then you can write a beautiful and heart wrenching portrayal of betrayal.

You never really know how you’re going to react to something until it’s actually happening.

Writers can take their secret thoughts and emotions — the deep and sometimes scary things that are never shared out loud — and transpose them onto different situations and characters. Maybe you’ve never been held hostage at gunpoint, but there was a time when you felt terrified and helpless, and that’s all the foundation you need to write that story.

Deep Writing

March 9, 2017 Autumn

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About Me

Who I Am

March 6, 2017 Autumn

I spent the entirety of my teen years writing. When all the other kids in my Creative Writing classes were planning out back-up careers “in case writing didn’t work out,” for me there was only one option:

I am a writer.

Through and through.

Spending my formative teenage years focused on only one goal has embedded it deeply into my identity. Sure, as an adult I’ve thought of other options that could keep me busy once my children are old enough to manage themselves (and help out around the house, ha ha), but everything seems gray and lifeless compared to the prospect of weaving characters and worlds to indulge in. How could I exist without those other identities living inside of me? Even if I never find a single reader, I would still write novels.

It’s who I am.

About Me

Social media and popularity

February 4, 2017February 4, 2017 Autumn

I don’t get social media. In this day, having a friend count in the double digits probably makes me a loser, but I’m okay with that. I like the mobility of posting family photos to Facebook, and I like reminiscing back on the experiences I’ve had in the same way I read through my old journals, but I’m a fairly private person. I don’t like the thought of everyone knowing my business, and I don’t want to spend my time portraying a glamorous version of myself that isn’t entirely true to reality. And honestly, who wants to live in a world where a person’s worth is measured by the number of ‘likes’ they accumulate?

Yet occasionally as I work on my novel, I fantasize about having a big audience. I imagine thousands of other people enjoying the stories that I create, and perhaps even relating to my characters and the struggles they overcome. There is a piece of me that craves popularity after all.

From behind the safety of a pen name, so I don’t have to tell the neighbors what I do. Ha ha.

While I don’t write about the experiences that I’ve actually had, I’m emotionally honest in my work, and that makes it hard to advertise myself to the people I meet. In a way I want to be an idea that connects to the secret hurts inside all of us, to help others find companionship and solace. Is that weird? Probably. But I’ve never been normal.

After all, I don’t get social media.