The Autobiographical Nature of Writing

I've discovered something recently that I think most people less blocked than me have long ago realized: that most writing is autobiographical in nature. Maybe not fully autobiographical (or maybe it is, for some) but in the sense that bits and pieces have been taken from our lives and strung together into whatever story flows onto the page.

I started thinking about why this is the case, and here is what I came up with so far:

• We can only write about things we know. Even mystical worlds are based on some sort of reality that we have witnessed, or that has inspired our vision.
• We often write to make sense of life. This includes events in our own lives, in the lives of those around us, or in the lives of people halfway across the world.
• We likely write from a divine source. I feel like anything that is being channeled through us as inspiration would, by default, have to be based on some sort of experience (perhaps a spiritual one).

I was sitting here tonight talking to God, which I do from time to time. I was asking him why this, why that, why so much suffering, why so much pain. Why was I even born. (Yeah, I was crying for a little while.)

And then I asked whatever is up there, for the third time this week, to help me do something with all of it so that my existence could have some meaning. Please make the suffering have a reason, I said with my mind's voice to the dark sky above. Please let me do something with it, please let it not all be for naught, please help me.

I sat quietly (the best way to sit if you want to really hear) and I wondered how I could channel everything into my writing. And then I started thinking about Isabella.

Isabella is both a character and a title that I came up with many years ago for a novel. She is fully formed in my mind and has been from the start, although the story around her has been fuzzy. She is very much like me, in fact, which is not surprising. She has brown hair with gentle curls that fall around her face. She is inquisitive. She is smart. She is shy.

She is an orphan.

While sitting in the quiet, talking to God, asking how to make sense of everything....I suddenly found Isabella's story. I'd been waiting for years for it to come to me. I knew she existed but I didn't know why, or what she would be doing.

I think, finally...FINALLY...I know.

Will it be autobiographical? Of course! To a point. Isn't everything autobiographical in some way? See my explanation above, lest you've forgotten my logic already.

In fact, it will be something I know (I'm not an orphan, but I have felt like one many times in my life), it will help me make sense of my life and the actions of others around me, and it will help me grasp at answers to my questions. Answers that will have to come from the infinite universe, or God, because I don't have those answers yet.

In the past I would not allow myself to base any of my "creations" on my own reality or on anyone else's. I know it's sort of silly, and perhaps this is why I've been blocked for so long, but I thought doing so would mean I'm not authentic enough or creative enough.

And, friends please listen to me, this is such a fallacy. Nothing is new. Nothing in the entire universe is new! Everything is recycled.

Every. Story. Out. There. Is. Recycled.

Every love story has been told. Every adventure story has been told. Every mystery has been told and/or solved. Every adventure - real or fictional - has been thought of even if never written down. My life or some version of it has been repeated before and will be repeated again. It is the nature of our existence as humans.

And all of these things are the only sources of inspiration we have for our stories, for our art, for our music, for our poetry. Where else would the inspiration come from? It has to come from our experiences, whether they are material experiences or spiritual experiences.

I'm grateful for the progress I've made in the last week in unblocking my writer's block. I'm continuing to work my way through The Artist's Way and have committed myself to practicing creative writing on a daily (or at least an every other day) basis. I'm very pleased to see that something is finally shifting with this particular story idea. I'm extra pleased to see that when I was begging the universe for some sort of answer tonight, I found something to grasp onto.