Reading · This Is Not About

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Anastasia’s Island, a collage by the author.

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Am I the Earth
if I sell myself
my own bones?

Above is a question that came from the tip of a dream this morning.

It’s not unusual. As I have been relying on intuition and a flow state of creativity to write this current work-in-progress novel, I often awake with a sentence spoken from that other world; that world where dreams are real for a full eight hours, that world where, for a full eight hours, this table I sit at, this laptop I type, do not exist.

I’m not making this up. It’s your reality, too. Dreams are with us every night and yet we walk in this world as if they don’t mean a thing. Why, I wonder, don’t we talk about it more? Why not recognize that we are all dual beings? We all have a side of us that is mystical, that is guided by our collective ancestors, by the essence of being human. (How cool is that?)

Somehow, this novel I’ve been writing and editing for five years has been teaching me, as all novel writing does, about this other world inside myself. This has all been a five-year-long experiment, opening my arms to the Muse, allowing the story to show itself, following the breadcrumbs of dreams.

Don’t get me wrong. I believe in learning story craft. I’ve spent countless hours practicing the trade, seeking out the best teachers, devouring their classes. But I know, instinctively, there’s a place where I must draw a line between craft and me. Exactly what the shape of that line is, I cannot tell you, yet. I won’t see it clearly until the novel has simmered into my past. But I know that same line is a part of what spills out on my pillow in the morning and what I bring to my bed at night.

I think it’s worth talking about.

This Is Not About is written by Ada Austen, the author of Better Late Than Never, a multicultural second-chance romance set on the beaches and boardwalks of the New Jersey Shore. It is the New Jersey Romance Writers 2021 Golden Leaf Winner - Best Book by NJ Author.

Anastasia's Island

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