Self (Re)construction

I'll be honest; it can be hard to find specific lyrics that really encapsulate how you're feeling. And for me, it's damn near impossible. Now you see, I love music. I love what it does to my brain, my body, and my entire soul. But as a writer, finding that particular piece of music that truly understands what your brain is doing when you're trying to write, well, that's damn near impossible. So I want to start by saying this, I truly don't think I really found myself until I began writing. I spent my undergrad years studying education, and I wouldn't change that for anything. But it wasn't until I happily graduated college that I wanted to write. And I wanted to write hard.

I've always been an avid reader. My life consists of getting lost in breathtaking worlds and characters that help me feel something that this real world can't. On one sunny day in 2017, it dawned on me that I wanted to create those worlds where people could escape when this reality got to be too much. Much to the dismay of my parents (they were supportive, but education is expensive, man) and, obviously, my wallet, I enrolled in a creative writing MFA, and it was the best thing I had ever done. Just like many people in this world, I tend to dabble in self-destructive behaviors, and for me, that looks a lot like telling myself I'm not good enough to achieve anything. Growing up, I never felt good enough. Not good enough for education, not good enough for a fulfilling career, not good enough for other people, not good enough for me. I might as well have been the walking poster child for "you are your own worst enemy." 

I know what you're thinking- Brit, you have debilitating insecurities, and you still chose to be a writer? Obviously, the answer is yes, and trust me, that imposter syndrome hangs over my head like a dark cloud on most days, but it was also writing that helped me gain that confidence in myself I've been searching for since I was thirteen. Ask anyone who knows me personally; I struggle with self-confidence; I always have, and always will, but the silver lining is that writing has made me more self-aware, which helps me be more confident in myself. 

So, pursuing writing helped me reconstruct myself into the person I was always too afraid to be. Shout-out writing! 

Anyways, this brings me to my next point. Every single writer on this planet knows that writing is hard. In fact, it's torturous. All writers have their things to help them find or relight that spark. For me, I'm heavily inspired by music. Music puts me in another world, just like books. I'll admit, this past year of writing has been a real roller coaster ride, and I've been struggling to find that "groove" every writer needs to get the words on the page. 

But every now and then, something happens that will help that writer latch back onto what they’re passionate about. And that something just that helped me open my eyes to what I've been needing to see all along- that the book I've been tirelessly working on will be written. It was like a thousand little neon lights flashing through my brain. My mind has been in a constant battle that I will never get this book done. That the whole idea of it feels like a fever dream to me, and that's all it will ever be. Today I realized my mind was lying to me all along because I heard something. I’m a massive fan of the band, Motionless in White, and today June 10th, 2022, they released an album called Scoring The End Of The World. And as I sit here and listen to each track, I can quite literally see my book coming together. 

Motionless in White has never shied away from the serious issues life likes to offer, and I think that's why I love them so much. They're not afraid to incorporate raw and unadulterated emotion into their lyrics, and in my opinion, everyone needs that. Their music showed me that it's okay to feel every emotion that flows through your veins. But, it does more harm than good to keep it bottled up inside—I can thank "Disguise" for that. I can also thank that very 2019 album for helping me dissect the emotions that my main character is feeling throughout my whole book. I don't want to speak too much about the story I'm working on, but I can say that all of my characters feel their emotions immensely, and I let them do that. In an interview with Rocksound, frontman Chris Motionless talks about that "explosive moment" when people bottle up all of their feelings and emotions. In the interview, he says, "they keep everything inside until it all comes to this explosion moment." I will say that my story starts out with the main character doing that quite a bit, but hey, a story would be nothing without some character development. 

Now, the plot is a different story. Constructing my plot has been the bane of my short existence. My brain has gone through the ultimate ups and downs as I try to envision each scene and put it on the page as a whole damn story sequence. I knew what I was trying to do; I just couldn't do it. But something I've learned from having some phenomenal writing pals in my corner is that plot is a character (Shout out, Rachel! ), and the plot has to have the same emotion as those characters. And let me tell ya something, my characters have some world-shattering, explosive feelings. So, and much to my excitement, that's going to make for a world-shatteringly explosive plot. And I think that's how I would describe "Scoring The End Of The World." Just like the name of track #6, this whole album is a masterpiece. It contains all the highs, the lows, and everything in between human emotions that are affected by a negative outside force. And since my book takes place in a post-apocalyptic/utopian society, well, I'll let you put the pieces together for that one.

Just like the lesson that it's okay to feel your emotions, MIW also teaches us that it can be difficult to actually feel them. The human mind is a tricky thing. It's working tirelessly throughout the day, and yet when it comes to feelings and emotions, it can just shut down. It almost feels like your brain is working against you in these scenarios, but I think it's just learning. As we get older and face new challenges, we allow ourselves to grow and learn. And trust me, I don't think it ever gets easier; we just become more adjusted to what the world decides to throw at us every day. So we can raise a fist and curse the world for being so cruel, or we can continue to allow ourselves to feel that anger, take a step back, and face the situation. It's okay if the anger and sadness knock you down sometimes; just make sure you get back up. Trust me, if you let yourself feel every single emotion that comes your way, you're going to feel it in your bones. You're going to feel it in the deepest pits of your soul. But that's how you grow. And that's how the characters in my stories will grow. And just like how I write my characters, I'm going to allow myself to feel every emotion. 

So, a big thank you to Motionless in White for creating an album so powerful that it helped me to put the pieces of my book together. And by putting the pieces of my book together, I was able to continue putting the pieces of myself together. So, I not only reconstructed my story, I reconstructed myself.