Author, Know Thyself!

So, my writing at lunch today took a decidedly unconventional (for me) turn. Instead of working on my novel, I typed up a short (3500 word) essay for myself. I thought about posting it here but there is a core to it that I need to keep to myself for now. I have a feeling it will be making a dramatic impact on my writing from here on. I read recently (on one of the blogs in my sidebar, though I can't for the life of me recall which one - so I apologize if I'm stealing someone else's thunder!) that it is important for a writer to know his own theme. To understand the principles that guide your view of the world and your need to write. It was suggested that every writer should pen out his theme so that he can understand it and use it better in his work. That wasn't really in the front of my mind when I started working today, in truth I only planned to type out a quick paragraph or two with some rough ideas I had last night toward my next novel. The writing got quickly away from me and I found myself following a thread of ideas that soundly presented my view of life in general. I was actually surprised by some of the concepts I laid out because they were not things I had ever openly articulated before and if you had told me yesterday that was what I thought I would have laughed at you. When I read them over though and considered carefully I was very surprised to find that what I thought I felt was not quite what I truly felt. This little exercise was shocking to me, in a surprisigly pleasant way. It is startling to look at your own true heart laid out in print like that in front of you.

Those words prompted me to follow up on another tip I'd recently read (again: apologies if I pulled it off your site without credit!) that said you should consider all the books you've ever read and name off the ones which are most important to you. We all have special books that mean a great deal to us. Books that altered something inside us and even years after we've read them we can still recall them with startling detail and even return to them regularly to review the lessons gleaned from their pages. I'm not speaking of the books we enjoyed the most but of the ones that affected you the most. The ones you had to walk away from when you'd finished and find a quiet spot to sit and absorb the amazing concepts you'd just read. The idea is to list them out then look for a common theme that runs through them all. This should be similar to the theme of your own life. They should resonate one to the other . . . I imagine you might even use the theme of those beloved novels as your start point for penning out your personal theme.

I'm not sure yet how much this will help in my writing but I think it will help keep me writing things that have meaning to me personally if nothing else. I am also bemused right now over how little I know about myself. I've always been an introspective person but writing out this small esay has opened up doors inside me that I wasn't even aware of until today. Strange isn't it? Just when you think you've got it all covered, you discover that there are levels to the game of life you didn't even know existed. Amazing.

I don't know if I'll ever post that essay here (it's still too personal at the moment) but I know for a fact that it will hang on the wall of my home office, where I can refer to it as I write. The concepts in it are large in scope, detailing my own beliefs about existence, duty, personal responsibility, and death. This is the part of me that needs to be in everything I write. It is what marks my voice as different from every other writer out there. When I first read about the "theme" exercise, I shrugged it off, not thinking it was anything I needed to do. Obviously, my subconscious thought differently. I suggest the exercise for anyone reading this. It may dramatically change your writing and, at the very least, it may give you an understanding of your own heart that you've never had before.

There's my $0.02 for the day . . .

Later!