Identity Crisis (or…”Sybil, are you in there?”)
Today, my good friend and critique partner Roxy Harte asked me point-blank, “Who is Xandra and what does she want to write?”
My first thought was, “Well, that’s a big Duh.” Followed by, “I write…” and then some silence. Thick silence. Silence that had been placed on a strict diet of lard, turkey gravy, and cheetos until it was so thick it needed a triple bypass to even exist.
I realized that making a declaration like that was something that shouldn’t be done lightly. Uniformly, the advice from more experienced writers, industry professionals, and writing career how-to books has been solidly in the “pick a lane and stay in it” camp. There are reasons ranging from the marketing-oriented to reader expectation which combine to make a great case for finding a tone and (sub)genre to call your own. Not to mention playing to your strengths.
But here’s where I came up short. Alien Communion pretty much wrote itself to a certain extent. I had so much fun creating the Alcaini and sexually liberating my heroine that the rest just sort of fell into place. I just finished a draft of a really scorching hot M/M that did the same–I just took dictation from the characters. And I’m letting my big, sprawling space opera WIP take a breather while I work on something that’s distinctly paranormal in nature. Not to mention the urban fantasy I have in the archives, or the six romantic comedies I wrote several years back. Granted, not all of these stories were birthed fully formed from a crack in my head, but they all are representative of me. Of what makes me a writer. How do I limit myself to just one aspect of that?
So late on a Saturday night when most people are partying their little bunz off, I’m sitting in bed, blogging and thinking (of course, if I wasn’t blogging and thinking, I’d still be in bed–I have kids and therefore no social life). I should probably pick a lane, and stay in it…at least long enough to get to the next exit.
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