process revisited

In my recent author Q&A, I was asked about my writing process by more than one person. I got every bit as weird while answering it as I always do when asked this question. Despite rambling awkwardly for a good long while, I don’t know that I actually said anything useful or interesting about it in the end.

I remembered that I had blogged agonizingly on this very topic what is now six-and-a-half years ago, so I moseyed over to my archives to have a look at what past-Alyssa had to say. It turns out that even though like EVERYTHING has changed about my life since then, and even though I’ve churned out a whole novel and several short stories in the interim, so much about that post remains accurate today. Especially the parts about creative blockage. (And the tea obsession.) Plus ça change, right?

So I figure it’s worth nudging that old entry back into the spotlight, because I think it does a better and more organized job of talking about whatever the hell my process is than my rambling answer in the Q&A did.

Process Shmocess, or How I Art Like a Lunatic

What is always true across all times and formats in which I talk about this subject is that it has a way of kicking up my Imposter Syndrome with an intensity that little else can match. I’m not sure why this one thing is the Big Red Button of activating my sense of being a fraud, but I feel like it’s probably lodged somewhere near my ridiculous but unshakable feeling that I can’t be called an “artist” if I can’t draw, specifically.

You’ll just have to try to bear with my anguished flailing until I go back to remembering that I can’t be a fake writer if I’m literally holding, in my hands, a real copy of a real book that I wrote.