I AM Writing What I Know
I am writing what I know.
We all are.
But, Shiri, you say: you write urban fantasy and there’s magic and monsters and futuristic King Arthur’s and…
Yes. Yes, I Do.
I also write (and read) about people. I use the term “people” generally here as what I have to say also applies to elves, orcs, dwarves, fallen angels, demons, nature spirits, living allegories, sentient refrigerators, talking trees, snarky chairs, etc.
The character we craft as writers, no matter who or what they are, are infused with our knowledge of the human condition, our experience of the human psyche. All the brass tacks and warts and split ends. One may decide to fictionally seat that experience on the aforementioned sentient refrigerator for whatever reason (hey, we’re all about the creativity here) which is a THING THAT DOES NOT EXIST but I guarantee you, the fridge will have some familiar traits: maybe it tells the same bad/dirty jokes my grandfather did or preens like an ex-boyfriend I had or likes to play with Legos as much as my kids do.
It’s an appliance, you say. Yes, I’m aware. But it’s an appliance with roots. Roots in my story or your story. It may not exist in our collective reality, but it exists in my brain reality with all of my other imaginary friends. In that word, it makes sense.
Which means that even when I’m writing about wise appliances, I’m writing what I know.
For those of you who aren’t aware, I am a practicing RN (at least until this writing thing takes off). I have worked in corrections and I have worked in psych. I don’t do either of those anymore but those catalogues of experience will always be with me. I have know good kids who walked the wrong path, questionable kids trying to make amends. I have stared down true evil (not being dramatic here, you should have seen this guy’s eyes) while it was firmly shackled, two guards at my back and one beside me, while I tended to its wounds. I have seen poor, pure souls left to wander because of accidents of brain chemistry and circumstance. Working at the Red Cross, I saw the best of people; those willing to give up several hours every two weeks to donate platelets, an hour to wait in line to get on the National Bone Marrow Registry. A young man giving his stem cells for the second time. I’ve tended bodies, living and dead. I’ve tended minds, intact and fractured. I once helped wake a man up from a coma by realizing he wasn’t getting the medications he needed. A few days later, I watched my preceptor tell four teenaged and young adult siblings their mother had a handful of hours remaining before she died of AIDS.
All of you, every one of you, lives in the world. You all of your own version of those experiences and a million more besides. You have siblings, parents, friends, uncles, aunts, grandparents…. You’ve seen them all at their best and at their worst. Everywhere in between. Birth, death. All the life in between. That is what you know. Giving a character pointy ears or wings or scales doesn’t diminish any of it. Implants, cyborg bits, having been stranded on fucking Mars. Does the writer necessarily have those physical attributes or that exact history? No. Can a golem and a djinni live a life together? Not in this world, but two very different people can certainly come together and come to love one another. Does chocolate cure all ills in the hands of someone who has the mystical ability to intuit exactly what people need? Well, yes on the chocolate, but no, not really. Perhaps, though, you’ve met someone very perceptive who was able to ease your suffering in the midst of a bad moment.
We know by living and it is the sum of our experiences we bring to our writing. Not the nuts and bolts, not the day to day drivel.
The small moments of clarity. The potential. The epiphanies.
We are always writing what we know.
Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.
Go forth and give ’em hell.
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