Your Most Important Story Is the Tale of Your Creative Journey

Help me keep saying the thing that need to be said. I appreciate you! Upgrade at 30% off!Your writing doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Any story you write is always a concentrated version of the larger reality of you. It’s only within the context of your life that any of your observations have any meaning. Therefore, it’s up to the artist to offer the world a little peek behind the curtain.Consider discovering a book by an author you’ve never heard of. What do you think that book is going to be about? You can get some clues from the artwork, or the title, or the back cover copy, but for the most part it’s a complete mystery to you.It’s not the enticing sort of mystery either.Now consider discovering a book written by your favorite aunt. You know her humor. You know where she worked. You are familiar with how she decorated her house, and how she wore brightly colored scarves and head wraps. You even know unusual details like how she drove a convertible and she carried an ivory cigarette holder even though she didn’t smoke.That’s the kind of book that makes you smile simply by learning that it exists. It’s like discovering a cherished friend that you pick up and hold close as if in an embrace.In the second example, you have the context of the author’s journey. That’s the key to transforming your writing from thrift store discard to treasured keepsake. The craft of writing is more than just the words you put on the page. Your creative works hang like fruit upon the tree of your author’s journey.Constructing a writer mythologyWhatever little shred of information you know about a writer magnifies your interest in their work. Perhaps you don’t know anything about the story. But you know that the author was an astronaut, or a renowned chemist, or a 17th century pirate.That context is like the key code that allows your mind to snap into the correct plane of existence. It gives you an idea of what you can expect when you turn yourself over to the story.You know Ernest Hemingway as a kind of rough and tumble guy who also seemed to be very concerned about maintaining a neat appearance. He fought in wars and you might imagine him gripping the wheel of an ambulance on his way to meet a nurse who’d cared for him after suffering an injury.One way or another, everything he writes is going to be related to the realities of his life. The stories need that context to be understood. They can’t stand on their own. We must allow ourselves to fall into the atmosphere that gave birth to the creative work.The colorful lives of writersThinking about Fyodor Dostoevsky brings to mind everything you’ve ever heard about Russia. You might think of those old fashioned photos that are blurry, brown, and which fade to shadow around the edges. You think of cold, poverty, and suffering on a level human beings can barely endure.Edgar Allan Poe is a name that also brings images to mind. As for me, I think of meticulously rendered drawings in black ink that depict the shadowy streets of Baltimore. I think of an awkward man creeping around the brick and mortar, perhaps with a bundle of dead flowers clutched under his arm. He must also have a book in his hand.Even an author like Jules Verne brings to mind a kind of outdated form of science fiction. You think of massive, heavy rocket ships with rivets on the side and huge portal windows more suited to the sea than outer space.These fleeting images serve as false memories of having actually known the writer. You might even draw upon your own life experience for memories that remind you of these people. Perhaps you remember your high school English class where the name Poe was first mentioned to you. The teacher likely conveyed his own understanding of the author’s life in order to help provide the context that would allow entry into that world.Coming back to the surface for a witnessMany writers make the mistake of becoming too absorbed with their text. They forget that you can never cut the line that connects the creation to the creator. That line of ink will always run from the last word to the hand that holds the pen.When you’ve spent years and years working on a text, it’s easy to forget how deeply submerged you become. As a writer, you can’t afford to forget about the transition phase that must be navigated in order to take your reader from the regular world to the world of fantasy and observation you wish to show them.You’ve become so used to going down five fathoms every day, that you put on your diving equipment through rote conditioning. But if you try to take a friend along, and you don’t walk them through that process, they’ll drown in the depths.Writers become so meticulous and fixated on perfection that they lose all sense of context. You’ve got your work up close in front of your eyeball. You have to step away and see what it looks like from a distance.A new perspective can be uncomfortableIt can be hard to accept that your writing can’t function solely on its own merits. You’re not all powerful. You can’t write something that works flawlessly wherever it’s encountered.If you walk through the desert and meet a severely dehydrated man, you’ll have little success offering him a rich chocolate cake. He’ll choke on it if he tries to take a bite. Too often, writers, being sensitive souls, assume this kind of rejection means they haven’t got any talent.You might have baked the best chocolate cake in the world. You just gave it to somebody who wasn’t physically equipped to appreciate the astonishing texture and flavor.Instead of thrusting your chocolate cake upon every stranger you meet, you have to set the table. You have to make sure your reader is well fed and well rested. You have to make sure the lighting in the room is correct and that the dessert comes in the right portion at the right time after a satisfying meal.For some reason, the image of a desperate soul stomping around throwing cake at people and suffering when it’s rejected reminds me again of Edgar Allan Poe.Your life is the element of transitionWe need transitions from reality to the world of fiction. Your author story is the foundation upon which all your other stories are built. As for me, I’m still constructing my author story, but I’ve been at this long enough that mine is pretty well formed.I grew up on a farm in a small rural town in an abusive situation. From there, I moved to South America where I lived for a decade. Since then, I’ve been a husband and a father.All of these experiences form branches that influence the stories I write. They inform my viewpoint on the world. My viewpoint is also constructed by my nationality, the language I speak, the person I married, the exploits and the triumphs of my children. My humility, my pride, my success and my failures all come together in every word.I don’t have to share every specific detail of my life for random readers to enjoy my work. But people are intensely curious about nuggets of gossip that seem to suggest a universal truth. As writers we have to harness the power of that impulse. These are the whispers you put upon the wind which carry halfway round the world in an instant.What better marketing tactic can there be than some salacious story people mutter to each other with a smirk?The double helixThe sum total of your influence as a writer will be made up both by who you are and what you create. These two stories live in harmony. The story of you as a writer is made up by the interviews you give, the interactions at book signings, your inability to land a publishing deal, and the final triumph of getting your work out into the world.Part of your story is the wall of oppression that you run into when powerful forces deliberately attempt to suppress your writing. All of this comes together to inform the public about who you are and what they can expect from your words.If you do it right, your audience will develop a craving for you. Your work will remind them of a favored meal which they haven’t experienced in a while. A mood will come upon them which can only be satisfied by engaging in that familiar, consensual hypnosis that is created by the written word.The story of your life serves as the trail of bread crumbs that will allow your readers to come knocking at your door. It’s the key that will allow them to gain entry into your world.You all make this newsletter happen! Thanks for your sponsorship! I have payment tiers starting at as little as twenty dollars a year.Upgrade at 30% offUpgrade at 40% offUpgrade at 50% offUpgrade at 60% offI'm so happy you're here, and I'm looking forward to sharing more thoughts with you tomorrow.My CoSchedule referral linkHere’s my referral link to my preferred headline analyzer tool. If you sign up through this, it’s another way to support this newsletter (thank you).I'd Rather Be Writing is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to I'd Rather Be Writing at walterrhein.substack.com/subscribe