You Tell Me...

Every man's work, whether it be literature or music or pictures or architecture or anything else, 

is always a portrait of himself.

~ Samuel Butler, The Way of All Flesh

I think this is true, at least in part, of me. There is a lot of me in my work. Experiences I've lived through. Emotions I've felt. Some of my hopes, dreams, characteristics, traits I wish I have, traits I wish I didn't have, and all sorts of other things get peppered into my characters and stories. 

How much of you is in your work? Are your works portraits of yourself in any way?

Blog Chain - Who and What Are You?

Blog Chain time again, and this time, it's my turn to start things. I was pretty clueless about what I'd ask for this round, but then our fabulous Elana and I got into a fascinating discussion the other day and I am really curious as to what other people think about this subject.

I'll save you the long backstory, but basically we were discussing my MC and her character and personality traits and we started discussing whether or not who you are determines what you do, or if you do what you do because of who you are.

So, my dear Blog Chainers (and anyone else who may read this post), what do you think:

Do you choose WHAT you do because of WHO you are? Or is who you are determined by what you do?

To say it a few more ways...Do the things you do determine who you are? Or do you do the things you do BECAUSE of who you are? Specifically as writers, do you write because of who you are, or did you become who you are because you write, or because you chose to become a writer?

Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Ha! Just kidding.

Honestly, I think there is a lot of overlap here. Elana and I had different takes on this. She used the example of her being a teacher. She is always a teacher, in all situations through out her life. She always finds herself teaching, and acting like a teacher, and treating others the way a teacher would. Being a teacher is who she is.

But she is working toward being a writer because it is who she wants to become. She believes that the choices we make help define who we are. I agree with that. I agree that in the quest to become writers, we pick up new personality or character traits along the way. For me specifically, I've become a little more patient (in some areas) :D I'm more outgoing, a little more confident in myself, that sort of stuff.

However, I'm more of a mind that I am who I am and always have been. Elana may be a teacher, she may see the world as a teacher, she may always be teaching, she may have always been a teacher from the day she was born, but the actual act of teaching is something she does BECAUSE of who she is. In my opinion. I think she would still think like a teacher and always be teaching in any profession she had chosen.

For me, I think being a writer may add to who I am, it may change me from being impatient introvert to a patient extrovert (hey, anything's possible!) but it doesn't change the basic ME. That while I might develop new personality traits over time, my basic self, the person I was born being...WHO I am...doesn't change. Who I am helps determine what I do. Not the other way around.

I am sort of a loner. I have an beyond overactive imagination. I love to read, get sucked into other worlds. I like to learn. I'm creative. I'm passionate. All of these things have been a part of who I am since the day I was born. I think I've been a writer since the day I was born. It's who I am. It's how I see the world. It's how I interact with people and with my environment. I AM a writer. I did not become who I am because I write. The actual act of writing is something I do BECAUSE of who I am.

If I had chosen to be a teacher (almost did and still might) or an archaeologist (my first degree is in history) or whatever else I may have chosen, I still would have seen the world and reacted to the world the way I always have, the way a writer does. I just wouldn't have written any of it down :D Or I would have found some other way to express it.

I may love other things, like music. I play piano (and was good at it once upon a time). I've played several other instruments in my life and was good at them too. I recently bought a violin and am learning to play. I would love to be a violinist, and in my quest to become a violinist, I may pick up more personality traits, it may change me in some ways, but it will never change WHO I AM. The basic core of ME.

And no, I do not think this is entirely black and white. As with everything else in the world, there is a gray, overlapping area. But for me, I think you do what you do because of who you are. You do not become who you are because of what you do.

I write and play music and cross-stitch and scrapbook and read because of the type of person I am. They do not make me into the type of person I am.

Yes, people's experiences and actions can change them. In rare cases, people can change their entire personalities and become totally different people. But I think for most of us, there is a basic core of YOU that never changes. A uniqueness you are born with that makes you YOU no matter what you may do over the course of your life.

I am writer because of who I am. I did not become who I am because I write.

Shaun is up next, so head over to his blog to get his thoughts on the subject :D

Write What You Know

I posted this on another blog a few months ago, but this is a phrase that I've been running across again lately, so I thought I'd re-post it :)

“Write what you know” is one of the most often heard phrases in the writing world. When I began seriously writing, my first reaction to this bit of advice was, “Oh heck no. No one is going to tell me what to write!” I didn’t want to write what I knew. That would be boring. I wanted to explore new worlds and dive into old ones.

It didn’t make any sense to me because I was hearing it very literally. I kept thinking, “Well, if writers only wrote what they knew, we’d have no fantasy or scifi or historical novels.” I mean, unless people were out there falling in love with vampires or having their home planets overrun by meat-eating aliens, it just wasn’t possible to always write what you know.

What I finally realized was that the best writers really do write what they know. Now, does that mean Stephenie Meyer has recently run into a family of vegetarian, sparkling vampires? Or that J.K. Rowling once stumbled upon a whole community of magical kids running around undetected by all the muggles somewhere in Britain? Of course not! (Well, not that I’m aware of in any case).

So how do writers write what they know? They infuse their stories with all of the emotions, knowledge, and life that they’ve experienced and use all of it to build their characters and storyworlds into incredible books that suck their readers into a new reality. I’m willing to bet that Ms. Meyer has, at some point in her life, experienced fear and loss and that total exhilaration of first love. J.K. Rowling was certainly never a magical teenage boy fighting a weird, snake-looking wizard…but she probably knows what it feels like to be terrified, excited, helpless, alone…to find friends who love you, fight for something you want, and maybe have things turn out great in the end.

To write what you know, you need to write about something you care about, something that touches you. That connection you have to your subject will come through in your work.

Novelist Kurt Vonnegut sums it up perfectly in our Quote for the Day:

Find a subject you care about and which in your heart you feel others should care about. It is the genuine caring, and not your games with language, which will be the most compelling and seductive element in your style.

Agent Rachelle Gardner had a great post about writing what you know last year. In her opinion:

Write what you know means write with authenticity about thoughts, feelings, experiences of life. Be honest. Write from a deep place. Don't write from the surface. Whether you're writing about parenthood or cancer or anything else... be real.

Don't reflect what you know from other people or the media... write what you know from your own inner life.

There is a more literal approach to the “write what you know” statement as well. It really is necessary to be familiar with your genre and the world of which you are writing. There are little quirks and “rules” to every genre – what works for a romance might not always work for a thriller.

Agent Scott Eagan posted about this in his blog a few months ago. He stated:

It is crucial for you to write in the niche that you know the best. By doing so, you understand the twists and turns to that genre that others might not get. More importantly, you understand the voice that is commonly associated with that genre.

This can also be an area when a little research can come in handy. If you are writing a book set in Ancient Greece, it is necessary for you to do enough research that you really know what you are talking about. Otherwise, you will never be able to truly transport your readers into the world you are trying to describe. Mary wrote a wonderful post about how familiarity breeds authenticity. You may not be able to personally experience the day Vesuvius erupted and buried Pompeii, or what it is like to live beneath the ocean, but you can familiarize yourself enough with the pertinent details that you can convince your readers that your characters are living through those experiences.

This applies to the worlds you create yourself as well. Fantasy and science fiction writers create their own worlds, true. But there are certain rules even within the realms of fictional worlds. Maybe in your world, women have supernatural powers and men don’t. Or maybe blondes can see the future and brunettes can fly. You can make whatever rules you’d like for your universe, but you have to stick to them. And you have to have enough knowledge of that world to convince your reader that the experiences and emotions of your characters are authentic and appropriate for the world in which they live.

When you write a book, you want to suck your reader into your world – whether that world is set in the past, the present, the future, or on some other planet or reality…you need to know enough about that world, your characters, and the things they will feel and experience to draw your readers in. Using your own emotions and experiences, and your own specialized knowledge about the world you are creating, will help you craft an amazing story.

In other words, my dear writers…write what you know ;-)