The Emotional Crash Of A Creative Voice
Short-Circuited
After back-to-back-to-back family celebrations, you’d have a burning throat and raspy voice too. Admit it—you’d be proud to sound that way after dancing and whooping and staying out way past a decent bedtime. But that’s not the type of lost voice that’s been keeping this author from sending out newsletters or, frankly, writing much at all.
And don’t go chalking it up to writer’s block. That’s not it. There’s still a blizzard of unrequited plot ideas and WIP edits swirling between the eyes. The problem—they’re stuck there. Not by a creative void, but by a constrained voice. What did it? An emotional and mental drain from a perfect storm of too many good things, not so great things, and the weight of normal life responsibilities coming full force all at once. There was no Doppler radar warning of its approach.
There’s a line in the trailer for Not Yours to Keep that I often quote: “Dreams don’t always turn out like we plan, and family is never simple.” Feeling it.
So, what is it, you ask, that has caused this emotional short-circuit? The best answer I have, one my wonderful, supportive community has heard before—is this: if I wrote what’s happening as a novel, readers would toss the book. You’d say the plot is too unrealistic; Tell me these things would never happen in real life; Insist people wouldn’t say these things. The verdict would be I was trying too hard, and you’d refuse to turn another unbelievable page.
And the irony? The topic or the characters would be more trope than overly dramatic, more this can happen to anyone than some astronomical holy-crap type thing. But you wouldn’t buy it. Here’s how I know:
I snuck in some truths.
I snuck in some truths—actual conversations and moments, both in Not Yours to Keep and in my latest manuscript. And it’s such a laugh that critique partners and beta readers flag these lines, noting in the margins, “this would never happen,” or “no one talks like that.” Meanwhile, the made-up stuff? High marks.
Here’s the part where you want an example, right? HAH- I’m not falling for it. You’ll never know.
What do you think makes the truth in fiction seem unreal? Is it a moment taken out of context and not fitting in the narrative? Is reality too real for fiction? Have you ever read or written something that didn’t feel believable on the page?
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Last Licks
Truth is stranger than fiction, and that's the truth.
I hope you can find your way through your perfect storm and uncover your voice again. As to your questions about truths in fiction, as a writer of historical fiction, I get told “this would never happen,” or “no one talks like that” all the time. :-)