Since last week’s rant about ChatGTP I’ve stepped away from the keyboard and gone back to pen and paper and stream of consciousness writing again – Julia Cameron’s morning pages and just brainstorming book two of my series and I’m slowly feeling my creativity return from its near death slumber. I’m even starting to get excited about the story again, and it feels like maybe this isn’t as insurmountable of a task as it seems. No formal writing like scenes or chapters or even revisions have taken place just yet, but I am breathing some life back into my characters and their world and that’s got to count for something. If nothing else, stream of consciousness without judgement on the words is allowing me to rediscover my voice, which is definitely a good thing. In the words of Lin-Manuel Miranda, “I’ve put myself back in the narrative,” although, admittedly, not exactly in the same context as Eliza did.
Although I consider myself to be primarily a pantser, having the scaffold of a structure to build on is also helping. I’m deep into the study and analysis of the heroine’s journey, both the Maureen Murdock and Gail Carriger’s versions. Examining these archetypes is helping me structure the story in a way I hadn’t really considered before. One of the elements that I find the most interesting is that the hero’s journey is one of increasing isolation, but the heroine’s journey is about building connections, friendships, relationships. It’s a completely different story structure from what Western culture expects to happen. That’s not to say that it’s not popular, in fact, Carriger argues that the heroine’s journey is wildly popular and even more so than the hero’s journey, despite most people never having heard of it before. As I read these two books it almost feels like I’ve been let in on a a very well kept secret, but one that also was hidden in plain sight – it becomes so obviously once you become aware of it that you cannot believe you didn’t see it earlier. A whole new way of thinking and seeing the world has opened up and it changes the structures and wiring of the brain and I’d be 100% lying if I said that I didn’t absolutely LIVE FOR moments such as this. Truly stunning and exciting.
T. Aldwyn Lee 