Welcome to the Asylum

“The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing… not healing, not curing… that is a friend who cares.”  ~Henri Nouwen

As idealistic as I may come across from time to time … in reality, frankly, I’m pragmatic to my core. I’ve never been a huge believer in fate–not in real life, in the world we literally live in. I’ve always loved the idea and the ideals that go along with it, but never really believed in it literally.

I’ve changed my mind …

I can’t go into all of the reasons why just yet (patience grasshopper), but on a writing level I’ll elaborate: The recent trials that I’ve been through have given me a whole new understanding of the grief that book three in the Guardians of Legend trilogy opens with. I merely thought I understood what it meant to see your whole world fall away. I now know beyond a shadow of a doubt, that feeling of utter hopelessness and the absolute definition of the word ‘hollow.’ I have to turn in Eternal Requiem sooner rather than later, and after months of being unable to pen a single meaningful word, I’m suddenly able to see clearly through the fog and the wall that was blocking the rewrite even before my life took a turn for the catastrophic.

Everything happens for a reason?

Perhaps. Seems too coincidental that right when I need to have a solid grasp on life and love and death, that life would take this route with me. Too convenient. Well, okay, there wasn’t anything convenient about it. Still, you get the drift. I’m not the same person who penned all the posts before August. Perhaps this was always so, each day brought a new person, but I certainly feel as though my personal evolution is far more pronounced now than it’s ever been before. Yes, we all change and grow—especially through trauma and crisis. But, for a writer, there is a special type of growth that we alone are privy to. Allow me the pleasure of sharing my thoughts on this.

I wrote this morning for the first time in a while. The music played in the background, epic and somber, and I got chills as I reached the pinnacle of the scene. I could feel the draft in the room where Garren stood. I could feel the weight of the blade in his hand, and the gravity of his coming actions. It wasn’t like it felt before—this was something entirely different for me. And I don’t know that I can totally give it justice here.  If anything … I think I’ve been freed of a great many things, and that has allowed me to enter unforced into a whole new world.

The most unimaginable event, for me, happened. Thus, everything else paled suddenly and fear no longer became a contender for my time. In the past three months, I’ve done things I never thought I’d have the guts to do. Ever. Even if bribed. And that mentality is apparently shifting over to my writing as well. I used to get eight shades of bent out of shape over bad reviews or drama with fellow writers, industry kerfuffles and the like. Ask me if I give a rat’s bald ass now …

A couple of friends from Boston came down to spend time here in the good ol south, last January. One of our many wonderful conversations dealt with meeting “your full potential.” I think it spawned from a handwriting analysis, where Vin said my Bs and Ds clearly show that I don’t, in fact, give a damn about what other people think. Funny enough, my pen was telling the truth of the matter … stuff that my actions and behavior hadn’t figured out just yet. In other words, I barked louder than I bit.

This is no longer the case.

I was fearful of flying because it had been years since I’d been on a plane. Back in September, I flew in a helicopter without the doors on. It was AWESOME. I used to fear Atlanta traffic and could never have imagined driving through it on my own, but a couple of months ago I drove through Atlanta and up to Athens, GA to visit two of my closest friends. I feared stress and heartache with an ill family member, but spent two weeks by my father’s bedside after his surgery and instead of being a basket case, I found that I was calm and useful and had some of the most meaningful moments that I’ve ever had with him.

Things I wrote about in my novels, that I have always longed for, had long since been put away because they simply weren’t realistic to me. Things I’d wanted in life had been put aside because I refused to reach for that full potential.

You may now consider me awake, and I wonder at times, if I ever really lived before now.

I’ve been terrible at answering emails and taking care of personal stuff and for that I’m quite sorry. Just know that I’m doing my best to get around to being productive on a personal level. Right now, I’m so focused on getting this rewrite done before my publisher kills me for missing a deadline, that I don’t even have time to market my current stuff. So, if you’ve emailed me or called me or Skyped me and haven’t received a reply, at least know that there is a damn good reason for it.

Bottom line: Everything can be applied to your writing. Everything. Even the kitchen sink. And heartache. Perhaps especially heartache.

“She plucked from my lapel the invisible strand of lint (the universal act of woman to proclaim ownership).” ~O. Henry

Sitting down to a new story, is like opening your vehicle to that, oh—so—wonderful, new car smell. You know what I’m talking about. It permeates everything—the seats, the trunk, and if you have a leather interior you get that old spice suave smell in addition to it. And like cars, stories need gas. What sort of gas am I hypothetically talking about? Well, that depends on you. Fuel is fuel. So what fuels your story? Some require premium, others you can get by with the cheapest stuff available. But there is a larger question at hand here:

Are you leasing, or buying?

You might not think there is a difference, but there is, and that difference determines how you’ll treat that story. Renters tend to ignore all of the little things because they aren’t fully invested in their acquired merchandise, or where they live, or what car they drive. When you first see that story, when you open the door and smell that delicious smell, you’re making a choice right then, whether or not you’re going to be with this thing for the long haul. You might not know that, but you are. Please trust me on this, you are.

If you’re buying, your maintenance will be more regular (usually), the grade oil you use will be higher (let’s assume for the sake of conversation that the oil here is the level of time you spend invested into your craft to make it all run smoothly), and you’ll take better care of it. Why? Because you envision a future with it. You make a commitment to it.

Is it your first work? Are you afraid those bloggers might be right? You know the ones—the guys and gals who emphatically state that all novels are total shit up until your fifth or sixth (or whatever the trend is at the time)? Whether or not you are a beginner, pro, or indeed a writer of total shit, you’re still making a call when you sign up for a fresh work. If you go at it with half your heart because deep down you’re letting your insecurities and fears make your decisions for you, then you’re leasing. If you go at it with all your heart, even if you’re scared to death of the commitment, then you’ve purchased.

Sounds too simplistic doesn’t it? It isn’t really, not when you look at it carefully. Contracts are sticky, complex things. And after all, any agreement between two parties is nothing more than a contract. You’re laying out your terms, and so is the story.

So what are the story’s terms?

Well, here’s some insider information—stories don’t like to be leased. They’ll offer you all sorts of incentives NOT to lease, but if you aren’t paying any attention, you’ll look right over them. Reminds me of rebates on cars—if you don’t ask, they don’t have to give them to you.

Stories don’t want you to bail after a certain number of rejections. That’s leasing. That’s turning it all back in, after a certain number of months (form letters from agents, or publishers, or both). Less the damages of course. And whatever damage you’ve done will cost you if you invest in another story at the same dealership. You’ll carry the cost over, just like you’ll carry the wounds of rejection letters over. And the thing is, if you’ve purchased, you don’t have to deal with that—not in the same way.

When you buy, you have the right to do whatever you want to with it after the title is in your name (that would be finishing the story). You can sell it if you’d like, pocket the profit, or keep it till it has to be retired. Bottom line is that the choices here are all yours.

When you lease, you don’t own anything. You aren’t investing in anything. Sure, there are perks. It’s cheaper, for starters, to lease than to own. Maintenance is taken care of (those are all of those classes and online critique groups you’ve spent years in). The second something is “wrong” and deemed beyond repair, it’s covered and you get to turn the thing back in, whether time is up on the lease or not.

When you buy, anything beyond the warranty is your responsibility. Yet, here’s the thing: Despite all the upkeep and the hassle, once it’s paid off, then it is truly YOURS. Forever. No take backs.

For better or worse, it belongs to you. And there isn’t anything better in this world than ownership. I saw a bumper sticker once that read, “Quit laughing jackass, it’s paid for!” You might not get published right away. You might never get published. You might get published, but not make a huge career out of being an author. But, it’s PAID for! You wrote the novel(s) that most of the world merely wishes to write. Don’t ever, ever forget this. It’s the only thing that matters.

So, you tell me: Are you leasing or buying? Really look at this question and answer it for yourself as honestly as you can. It’s really easy to say, “Yes I am buying.” But are you? Do you have one foot out the door, just waiting for something better to come along so you can slide out of one lease and move onto another one? When you get a form letter, or personalized rejection in your inbox, do you console yourself by saying inwardly, “Well, it’s not my best work anyway. I can do better. Maybe they’ll like the next thing I write?” Nothing wrong with hoping for better luck next time, but my point here is this: Are you giving your story less credit than it deserves because you really don’t plan on being with it for the long run?

The new car smell fades, yes. And it’s exciting to jump into a new car every couple of years. But nothing smells as good as a title, (pun intended) fresh off the press and I can guarantee you that with a lease, you’ll never see a title. You’re only borrowing it from someone else who will one day own it.

Which I suppose brings up the final question: Are you prepared to give it up to someone else? If not, then might I suggest you renegotiate your terms before your time is up?

It’s been long enough. You’ve waded into the shallow end. Take the plunge and OWN your story!

“The most powerful weapon on earth is the human soul on fire.”  ~Ferdinand Foch

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that frightens us most. We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and famous?’ Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that people won’t feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in all of us. And when we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.” ~Maryanne Williamson

**Bear with me: This starts out personal, but it does have a point for writers in general**

I’m a hell of a lot of woman.

I’m not loud and I’m not always the center of attention. But I’m strong-willed, decisive, independent, absolutely certain when it comes to what I want and going for it, and I’m usually all or nothing. In other words, I don’t do luke warm … I don’t have a working definition of halfway … and I couldn’t hit mediocre if I aimed for it. If I grant you a promise or my heart, you can take both of them to the bank.

It’s what makes my writing and my characters, and the worlds they populate, what they are. It’s what centers the Adorian culture and what pivots against Ereubinian slavery and repression. It’s the center and soul of my drive career-wise and what founds every friendship I have. If I love you, then I love you for life. I simply don’t know any other way to be.

This is not the easiest thing in the world to handle if you are in any way involved with me. Just ask my publisher. They’ve had more than a few candid conversations with me about this very issue. And I’ve learned a lot through professional growth this past year and a half … how to take that energy and tone it down enough to accomplish what I want. Still … on a personal level … there’s only so much dampening you can do. And after the events of the past two months … after walking on coals and mending the broken parts of my spirit … my soul is on fire.

I mean this in the best possible way.

Part of this is because I’ve recently been focused on rediscovering who I am—altering those parts of myself that I’d slowly changed to suit someone else’s wants and needs. There is tremendous empowerment in this. There is a sense of self unlike anything I’ve ever known. And every bit of it is coming out in my prose. My voice is sure and solid, without a hint of reservation or fear or hesitation. I was speaking with a fellow author not too long ago and I was trying to explain to her this whole process and how drastically my views on public scrutiny and critical reception had shifted, and it’s tough to really understand until you’ve been where I am. I had my foundations tested and they proved solid. But, until I knew that for sure, there were always those questions in the back of my mind … What am I made of? Am I worthy? Will I make it as an author?

Even if you don’t consciously entertain these thoughts, more than likely your subconscious is or has on some level. If you’ve ever read a review with trepidation or feared a critic, then you’ve absolutely asked yourself those things … even if you didn’t realize you were doing it. And while I can’t assure you of much else, I can unequivocally tell you that at the end of the day NOTHING else matters in your writing life outside of knowing who you are. Know that … and everything else … EVERYTHING else will fall into place just like it should.

Yeah … I know. You’ve heard this before. And nothing I tell you can show you or force you into this experience. It’s hard. It involves a lot of tears and heartache and pain. And solitude. This is not an endeavor you go through with others. While they’re there for comfort and support, the quiet, silent hours are the ones in which you feel the burn. It’s steel being forged in the fire. It shapes you into your true purpose as a writer … as a human being … as a creative, bright creature who refuses to sit idly by while your future is left in someone else’s hands.

Don’t think you’re leaving your future in someone else’s hands? OK … what do you want to happen in the next five years? Where do you want to be emotionally … physically … in your career? If you don’t know where you’re going, then you can’t complain about where you wind up. Aim for greatness and you’ll reach it. Aim for the very best and you’ll most likely get it. Don’t say, “if I make it as an author.” Don’t doubt yourself.

Because you are made of awesome. You are more than worthy. You’ve already made it as an author … the world’s perception of it in the future is merely icing on the cake.

Own it.

Like I already stated … I’m a hell of a lot of woman. More so now that I’ve entered into these burning days. You’re a hell of a lot of writer. Whether you know it yet or not. And like Marilyn Monroe said, “If you can’t handle me at my worst, you sure as hell don’t deserve me at my best.” I don’t care if you have to tape that quote onto your computer screen … or bathroom mirror or wherever … just don’t forget it when you start to think negatively about your life, your gifts and your calling as an author. Don’t be afraid to burn brightly … hotly … and for the world to see.

Because if they can’t stand the heat … they should get out of the kitchen.

“Here is the world.  Beautiful and terrible things will happen.  Don’t be afraid.”  ~Frederick Buechner

When I was a little girl, I played make-believe, like so many young girls do. I made up my own characters to accompany my favorite television shows (She-Ra and He-man if you must know), not content to just accept someone else’s creations. I flitted around the yard fighting dragons and the darkness and the forces of evil. I was fortuitous, full of fire and spirit and life. I was a leader, a comforter and a friend. Through the years, I used those daydreams to cultivate a picture of the kind of woman who I wanted to be once I grew up. I would be bold and wouldn’t take less than I deserved. I wouldn’t back down in a fight. I would hold onto the goodness in others and ferret out the shadows to expose them for what they really are. I would continue to create characters and worlds and stories.

But, somewhere along the way, I lost track of that girl. She faded against the backdrop of what I thought was my “reality” and the inevitable. Bitterness crept in, and I allowed myself to live only half a life.

I said once, a year or so ago, that I wanted to be the sort of person who did those brave things—who traveled and experienced life and had no regrets. This was said in the context of my being “unable” to do much of anything out of reservation, or anxiety, or lifestyle or preconceived notions, or whatever. Fear and monotony had me by the soul and it was eating away at my heart day by day. I wondered how I could be coming so close to achieving and having what I most desired, yet still be so far away.

It’s amazing what can change in a little over a month’s time.

The truth was there all along. In my writing hid little bits and pieces of the life that I’d always longed for. The girl I’d known so well, so long ago. The sort of affection and warmth and passion that I’d always given and never wholly received. But, I segregated that part of my life away and refused to look down deep enough into that fictitious world to see what my unconscious mind was trying so desperately to tell me. What Ariana, and Jessica Slate, and Garren were trying to show me. Things about myself that these characters, in their own ways, were displaying so boldly.

Like the act of murder, once the deed is done, your world is irrevocably changed. Nothing will ever be the same. Once the truth was revealed in my personal life, and I was set free, it was like a veil being lifted. Everything is different. And not in a bad way. Not anymore. Because there were things that I needed that I wasn’t getting that I didn’t even realize I was lacking. I was a full color girl living a black and white existence full of “you can’t” and “you’ll never.”

More than merely living that half of a life, I was accepting less than I deserve. I had long since given up on things that I now insist upon in my future: I want to feel pursued, adored and cherished. Nothing less will do.

I thought I was weak, and it turns out that I’m forged of stronger steel than most. I thought I was dependent and it turns out that I’m quite fond of blazing my own trails and creating my own destinies. I used to lay awake at night, dreaming of a world where my options were limitless—figuring that the closest I would ever come would be in my writing–and it turns out that the world ahead of me can be anything I want it to be.

After all, I said I would “grow up” to be a writer and I have six books under contract with a publisher. If I can accomplish this … then setting my eyes on the future of my dreams is within reach. All I have to do is keep on going until I get there … and not settle on the way for “almost” or “good enough.”

I have several paths ahead of me. I can sit back in fear and wait on time or fate or experience to usher me to the right one, or I can step out bravely on my own and take a chance on life again. I can swallow the fear as one would a breath of fresh air, and take it as a sign that I’m still alive. I can accept that my life and what happens to me, what becomes of me, is completely up to my attitude and how I approach the things that are set before me, be they obstacles or blessings.

The doors are wide open. The paths are begging to be traveled. Dragons slain. Darkness found and set alight. Worlds are bare clay, ready to be created. My happiness is in my own hands. My ability to love and be loved is ever stronger for the strain. My insecurities and fears, like those moments as a child when I wasn’t sure which way to go in the firefly-lit night, will serve as fuel for a greater internal fire than I’ve ever set ablaze before. This life of mine is only beginning. My dreams have only begun to take shape. My future is limitless.

The prodigal daughter has returned.

It's all in the details ...

By Vanessa Cavendish

“It takes 500 small details to add up to one favorable impression.”  – Cary Grant

“I remember everything, even the dates. But I don`t want others to remember the details, just the image.”  – Gloria Grahame

In her July 7 post, “Holistic Writing, Part 2,” Breanne posed a slew of questions to get us thinking about our own writing. I personally think each of those questions deserves a post unto itself. I’m working my way through them as best I can.

Question #4: Do you give lots of detail? Or do you leave it up to the reader?

All I do—and I mean, all I ever try to do when I write fiction, may God strike me dead—is to tell a story to the keyboard of my Dell Inspiron 1420 as near as I can to the way I’d tell it to you if you were riding shotgun with me in my beat-up, used-to-be-sky-blue 1949 GMC pickup truck with the ignition switch on the floorboard and no brakes to speak of, your fingers clawing for a non-existent seat belt as you try simultaneously to make sense of my eye-rolling, two-fisted, elbow-out-the-window way of talking a blue streak at you while I shift metaphors to point out whose curb that was we just rode up on. We got a concert to get to and we ain’t got time to smell the hibiscus. If the pedal don’t kiss the metal, we’re gonna be too late to tailgate!

What makes hard driving hard is what makes writing, writing.

I do wish you were here so I could see your face in my side view. Because if you yawn, if you scratch your nose or check your text messages, if you look bewildered by what I last said, or if the rumble strip gives you the jitters, I’m going to miss it.

I hate to break it to you, but writers are not rock stars. Guitar Hero doesn’t teach the chords you need to know. There’s no real-time feedback loop, no instant gratification when you nail it and none when your rhythm sucks ass. You (and if you have one, your crit group or your editor or your online beta-reader¹) will have to anticipate from within your studio isolation booth whether the reader is more likely to get up and walk out versus get up and dance.

I used to dread it, in Mr. Faulkner’s² class in tenth grade, when he pulled out his half dozen slide carousels to show us one or another of his family vacations—to Walla Walla, Washington (I shit you not), the Bavarian Alps, the Grand Canyon, the Alamo… The other kids encouraged him for no other reason than it wasn’t math. To me, you couldn’t get more irrational than the number of pictures that man took while he supposedly was having a good time.

Now, I dearly love the photographs in my own collection, but I do try to be selective about which ones I show you and which ones either didn’t develop or don’t relate or require too much in the way of an explanation. Because no, not every picture is worth a thousand words. Don’t keep showing me the same point-of-I-lost-interest from a different angle and, for godsakes, don’t get so fancy with your lenses and filters that you lose track of what’s important that for me to see and remember.

Here’s the kicker. If he had used just three of his seventeen views of the Matterhorn³  to illustrate a principle of geometry, as boring as that sounds, I might have paid attention. Done right, the visual might have made something abstract concrete. I might have learned something in spite of myself and not skipped his class so often to get high and to try to find a set of wheels to get to the city and rock out.

Let my truancy be a lesson to you. Your competition is so much more than other writers. Your competition is everything in the entire world that is not your novel.

If I don’t see a purpose unfolding in front of me—if I have to keep track, on my own, of my priorities, I’ll meet you in the parking lot with a full tank of gas. I’ll blow off the next chapter and the next and I will blame you for my lousy attitude.

Are we there yet?

As a passenger, I don’t think you want me under the hood in the middle of a major intersection, messing with your timing belt.

As an unlicensed driver under the influence of Melville and Hawthorne, with Gardner and King and Mary Shelley coursing through me, I’m one of those people, I think everybody else on this joyride needs an adrenaline drip just like me, and I mean to plump up that beautiful blue-green vein snaking up the inside of your elbow. Why else did you stick your thumb out when I rolled up on you with my door hanging open? Thing is, we’ll get there. But we’ll get there my way. Get in. I ain’t asking twice.

My way is the scenic route over rough terrain with a shaky camera. You can get out and walk if you want to, but don’t ask me to slow down.

¹I’m mad about my own cohort. She rocks!

²Not his real name. What gave it away?

³I know, I know, the Matterhorn is between Switzerland and Italy, not in Bavaria. Work with me!

“I would hurl words into this darkness and wait for an echo, and if an echo sounded, no matter how faintly, I would send other words to tell, to march, to fight, to create a sense of hunger for life that gnaws in us all.”  ~Richard Wright

There is an eerie feeling that follows reading about our favorite authors and the hardships they endured while writing our beloved favorites. It’s a piercing of that veil between our secret hope and the violent realization that all we have created cannot save us from the darkness and the pain of being such fragile, finite, ephemeral creatures.

It’s in times of trouble and hardship that our writing returns to us. It’s no longer just a passion, or a thing to be spoken of enthusiastically, but to be done in quiet and in the solitude of our own hearts, because nothing is what it once was. Public reception means nothing. Critics, editorial quirks and publishing woes are struck like weeds from the garden—uprooted and tossed aside. They have been seen for what they really are. Details. Nothing more and nothing less.

I spoke of writing evergreen once, in this post. In a way, this relates, though it’s a far deeper kind of purity that I’ve now come to know in my own writing process. It isn’t merely writing for the self—it’s writing with no concept of self. When my fingers touch the keyboard, nothing else in that moment exists beyond the story. It’s a sad kind of desperation really. A longing to find some solid ground to plant my feet on. And, amazingly, the world goes on around me like nothing has changed. And I suppose, for everyone else, it hasn’t. But, for me, nothing will ever be the same.

I’ve often mused through the years, ‘Is my life really a literary novel—stark and cold and brutal, full of vividly described scenes of crisp realism and tragic endings?’ In the early hours of the morning, awake in my bed and staring at the ceiling, I’ve secretly feared it was so. I’ve feared that a life spent dreaming of fantasy (and even romantic comedy) is in actuality like some sterile work of fiction where the sounds of nasal wheezing have taken center stage in chapter one because it represents the running down of the human body and the steady erosion of the human spirit over a lifetime of religious doubting and questioning.

I hear it … the dripping in the kitchen, the splash of water as it hits the cheap metal pot and chipped coffee cup in the sink. I feel the ache of joints and bones in ways that could only be described using words that no one uses in regular conversation. Words like, ineluctable and eructation.

It’s moments like this one … crickets chirping outside of my window, stars winking at me from the swath of velvety night sky … that I think perhaps it’s a bit of both. Perhaps even a little choice. Mostly perception. And as long as I’m still breathing, I’ll always believe a little in the impossible.

Certainly explains why I consider myself a holistic writer, doesn’t it?

We’ve walked the paths of sickness and health, death and dying, love and loss, with countless characters. We’ve loved with them. We’ve laughed with them. We’ve found and lost the meaning of life with them. We’ve grieved and feared and screamed and wept with them.

But there comes a time, in every author’s life, where they take our hand and hold our hearts. They breathe for us because we cannot breathe on our own. They love with us because we suddenly fear to and forget how. They laugh with us because we can no longer see the light or dream of the coming dawn. They find and lose the meaning of life with us because the life we knew no longer exists. They grieve and fear and scream and weep with us … because we created them, and they are the very best of who we are, who we have been and who we will become.

They walk through this present darkness with us, because of all paths, it’s the single one we cannot tread alone.

When there’s nothing left to grasp, when there are no more assurances left to ease our fears, when the dawn feels too far away to see, they are there. And how blessed are we, because it is in a way that no flesh and blood being ever could be. I dare say more so than any god because unlike faith, this great love, can never be lost.

A Walrus in an Octopus’ Garden, by Vanessa Cavendish

“She gave the fragile-looking bag a little shake and it echoed like a cargo hold as a number of heavy objects rolled around inside it.” – J. K. Rowling

In her July 7 post, “Wholistic Writing, Part 2,” Breanne posed a slew of questions to get us thinking about our own writing. I personally think each of those questions deserves a post unto itself. I’m working my way through them as best I can.

Question #2: What POV do you prefer to work in? First? Third? Would you ever try a different POV or tense on for size?

What I like best about this second question—it reminds me of Hermione Granger’s purple beaded handbag. Pick it up, look it over; just a straightforward drawstring affair with some neo-Bohemian bling. When you write, who tells your story? Are you a part of it yourself, or do you stand outside, directing and commenting but not, in terms of your writerly perspective, directly involved in the same way that a narrator-character would be? The more you rummage around inside, though, trying to pull out an honest response that makes sense of just who the who is that’s doing the telling, the more you realize the question’s got no bottom to it. Because of the mind-expansion charm embedded in the phrasing, almost any answer will appear to be several times larger than the question, a literal impossibility that leaves me scratching my poor, muggle-brained head. That’s the magic of a provocative question.

When you’re little, you practice who you intend to become. No shock there; we see it all the time in kids at make-believe and dress-up. We may come loaded with certain genetic presets, but the things we make up about ourselves mostly get pulled out of thin air and limited experience. You can set out to be Wonder Woman, but that doesn’t stop you from turning into Lady Di or Barbie or Hillary Clinton. Or King Tutankhamen, either. We feel completely free to mix and match elements of our personalities for what seems like an eternity, until one day, the world—or maybe it’s something biological—toggles a switch marked “conscious awareness” and one bank of stadium lights after another goes dark, accompanied by a sound-effect groan like a dying-generator. For some reason beyond my understanding, we each decide to wander down a single poorly lit corridor with damn few doors left open to us—and to call it who we are.

As if to compensate for such a self-imposed limitation, the MFA-approved fictional default POV is omniscient third-person. If I had to guess I’d say that every story I’ve ever written has cycled through that mode in at least one of its iterations. It rarely satisfies me. In this I know full well that I do not represent the norm among writers. I’ll grant you, there might be a flaw in my circuitry. I like the first person. You might call me narcissistic; I say it keeps me honest. Then again, the way I was brought up, “telling stories” means lying through your teeth, and I was a hard case to rear.

Friend of mine once pointed out the fact that most of human communication consists of pointing out the obvious: Looks like rain. Them little puppies is so damn cute! These hiking shorts make my ass look gigantic, don’t they? You get my drift. So forgive me if I repeat what you’ve read in practically every third issue of Writer’s Digest—that first person narration limits you to the perceptions and other information available to a single individual. But just let me ask you one thing: How much of a hardship has that been for you so far in your grown-up life?

I am a nosy and presumptuous individual and I will snoop around in your mental drawers the minute your back is turned. Don’t take it personally; it’s not about you, and I do recognize it as a problem, so I only have but eleven steps of the program left to go. Point being, when I try to tell a story from what I call (referring once again to my own condition as a writer and not to yours, necessarily) the third-person obnoxious, I feel I really ought to have a search warrant.

Therapists have been telling me for decades that I have boundary issues. You, me, Jesus and John Lennon, if the truth be told.

Look at it this way: when you blog, do you write in the third person omniscient? Some do. I’ll make you a promise, though. If I ever get around to replacing “This is an example of a WordPress page, blah, blah, blah…” under my About tab, it will not read, “Vanessa Cavendish began writing tales of the rural American gothic experience at the age of…” because nowhere in any of my files will you find a diagnosis of dissociative personality disorder.

So let me set this up, and you can have all the fun you want knocking it down.

You and I are fictional onions. I might dress plain but I think gaudy, and I will never tire of shopping for and accessorizing my personality. People who say, “I know who I am,” bore me to frozen freaking tears, because everybody needs a makeover, and I am not talking two or three times in your life as some sort of psychic overhaul brought on by midlife crisis. Some folks, first thing when they wake up, they go put on a face. Me, I sit down to write while the coffee’s making. But it’s the same process. The day begins with, “Who the fuck did I wake up this morning?”

For me, there is continuity enough in the question itself, in the persistent asking of it. When I talk to myself, I don’t want to sound like the voice coming out of my radio that spent all that tuition and studied so hard to sound like the signal coming from every other station. When I write, I might grate on your ear, I might sound like home sweet home, or I might come off every bit as exotic as you do to me.

But no, I will not know who I am. Not today, not tomorrow, not from one day to the next. I will keep my foot in as many doors as I can down all those dark, other corridors. I will reincarnate one story after another as I call into that creaking-hinged darkness, asking, “Anybody in there?” And my answer will probably always be the obvious.

“Why, yes; I believe it’s me, Vanessa. Do come in!”