The Story that Writes Itself

As part of my MFA program I am required to send packets of my recent writing and documentation of my reading to a faculty advisor mentor. Along with these packets, I must include a coverletter. Although I am becoming a fictionista, my advisor is encouraging me to become an all around woman of letters.

This blog is primarily for my thoughts on the writing process and my perspectives of the craft. If you are interested in my fiction work, or my commentaries over other works, please see my writing page on my Creative Wanderings site.

Dear John Rember,

A few weeks ago I had a revelation for a sequel to a YA novel I had written last year. In a matter of minutes I had a complete outline for my novel, chock full of supporting characters, villains, and plot twists. Yet, every time I sat down to work on this piece, the ideas seemed too big to get onto the paper. It just wasn’t ready to be written.
I was once told that a story will sometimes write itself. As a writer, it is possible to produce an entire story and not realize it’s meaning until after I have written it. I am a strong believer in realms beyond my own understanding, so I was open to this idea.

While I waited for my YA project to materialize I revised a microfiction about a homeless man that I wrote for the June residency. This exercise gave birth to another idea. I set out to write a story that began as a simple explanation of the life and misfortunes of homeless people.

I have spent several years heading up volunteer groups that cater to the needs of the homeless people in my community. Through my experiences I developed friendships with several homeless people whose lives inspired this story. I churned out several pages of a 3rd person narrative that I later changed to 1st person, a technique I’ve never used.

I set the story in Germany, a place I’ve neglected to visit in my travels. While I was revising the story, the idea of a supernatural twist struck me. I had originally named my character Ilse just for it’s German sound. Later I thought it might be a nice touch to add something to my story about legends or patron saints, something fitting for the location.

On a whim I looked up patron saints of beggars. I found several, but Saint Elisabeth of Hungary seemed to parallel my story nicely. It wasn’t until after I integrated Saint Elisabeth elements into my story that I found out that Ilse is the German form of the name Elisabeth, and that there is a statue for that particular saint in the actual city of Dresden, which I based my story in.

It seemed the story had written itself despite my ignorance. I’m finding that one story really leads to another, and another, eventually to the story that needs to be told.

The last few weeks I have read several great books. The two books I chose to write a commentary over each dealt with the role of individual belief with respect to culture of the community. I have just started reading a book that perfectly complements this commentary. I chose not to send in a commentary with this packet because I would like to include this last book. I will send it with my next packet.

I have also begun to nurture my credo file. I began this file during the residency so I would have an idea of my expectations from the MFA program as well as my personal goals as a writer. I’ve already seen things on this list take new shapes in my writing. I see the improvements I need to make, and its both exciting and scary.

Discipline is something I’m learning in all aspects of my life, but mostly in my writing and reading habits. I’ve always been somewhat of a free and scatterbrained sort. Routines, schedules, habits have all mostly been absent from my life. I’m learning to focus and work on my writing and revisions daily.

This is exciting because it’s spilling over to my other interests. I’ve always been good at things like language and painting and photography, but never great at any of them because of discipline. I’m learning a lot about my potential over the past few months. I even sold a painting recently! All this to say, I’m excited about things to come.



Regards,
Kristen M. Jackson