A WRITER SEEKS: May 2019

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Author, actor, producer, teacher and ne'er do well, Ms. McKenzie has taught over 100 courses in creative writing, technical writing, and essay writing. As a teacher, she focuses on helping each student to find their voice. As a writer, she focuses on keeping her own voice as authentic as possible. She has "traditionally" published one novel, two text books and one non-fiction book, and multiple essays, articles, and poetry. Recently, she has self-published three more novels and two more non-fiction books.

Monday, May 27, 2019

Storytelling

I am in awe of storytellers. I call myself a storyteller instead of an author because I don't give a flying fig about the market or sales or the publishing industry - I just like to make up stories and it's amazing when someone else (or many someones) likes those stories or is moved by them.  But the storytellers I'm in awe of are the *real* storytellers - the ones from the oral tradition who can and will make up a 

story on the spot that will rivet you to the sound of their voice;  or they have a story they've told over and over that grows and deepens as they tell it each time.  Their skill and artistry with that kind of immediate real-time storytelling not only awes me,  I also respect it more than I can say, because I know how bone-wrenching hard it can be to make up a good story. That they do it, just like that, right in front of you, is astounding, and way beyond my capacity.

I work hard at my stories - I dig for the truth of the characters that present themselves to me, and I'm always looking in the story for relevance to the themes that drive me - the abuse of power and the resilience of the oppressed in the face of it; the reality of working class lives as opposed to the way their lives are much maligned in popular cultural mythology; how the strength of women is different from that of men - deeper and more potent than our culture would have us believe; and how, in the best words ever used for this "there are more things in heaven and earth....than are dreamt of in your philosophy." 

It's a struggle.  It's a struggle I love, and to see it come bursting from storytellers with such joy and power gives hope to one who stumbles with each step.

WHAT WE DO HERE

There are plenty of websites, blogs, and feeds devoted to helping writers with their craft - there are lessons on everything from story arc to developing character to marketing your work. What most of us often lack for, though, is help with the internal struggles of being a writer -- not things like finding voice or theme or mood -- there's plenty of that out there, too - but what we often need most is figuring out how to be a writer where it counts, in our own heads. I was fortunate in my graduate Creative Writing program to have a panel of advisers who focused on the writer in each student, and how to hang onto that voice in our noisy world. It's a struggle, and I know one others share.