My Creative Spiral

I read through my entire manuscript this weekend. While reading, I went through what is known as the “creative spiral.”

            This is amazing. I love my book.

            Eh, it’s okay.

            Oh my god. This is awful. How dare I call myself a writer?

            Okay, some parts might be salvageable.

            Not as bad as I thought. I can do this.

            I like this. I think I might be proud of it.

Throughout this spiral, I noticed how the portions of my work where I’m most authentic are also the times I feel most like a fraud.

I’m sure there’s a psychological diagnosis, there. (Therapist friends, feel free to chime in.)

Finally, for one reason or another, I’ll pull my head out of my pages, and remind myself I wrote a goddamn book.

In a year, no less.

I’m always curious at how I can feel far more vulnerable with my fiction than I ever feel public speaking, recording a podcast, or writing an entry like this one for my website.

I know the reason is, fiction taps into a depth of humanity often inaccessible by nonfiction. When you’re reading fiction (or writing fiction), your barriers come down and you’re thinking about other characters—other worlds.

Without realizing it, your subconscious mind surfaces and things you didn’t know you felt (or forgot you felt) bubble up. Without realizing it, when reading fiction (or writing fiction), you’ve explored your inner life in a more intimate way than you might even achieve in therapy.

It’s why I love writing fiction, and why I also keep my fiction close to my heart.

It’s why, even if the creative spiral is a shithole of unpleasant emotions, I accept this part of the process. It’s making magic out of reality and disguising it as an untrue story. Without realizing it, creators get closer to the truth than the truth itself.

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