This Is Not About
It’s not about me and it’s not about writing fiction, although the writer in me is what you'll see here, mostly. My writing name is Ada Austen. In real life, I call myself a Creative who finds my outlet not only in words, but also in metalworking (a jeweler/silversmith), crocheting, collage, and paint. I live in Asbury Park, NJ, an interesting, musical and artsy little boardwalk City by the Sea that is both haunted and inspired by its past (as am I).
I’m currently working on my third novel. By now I understand that each novel, like a person, is unique and has a story of its own that as an author I can either choose to dig deeper to discover or I can hold fast to my previous design. Neither way is right or wrong. It’s just a choice to write one novel or another. The novel I finish today will not be, could not be, the same story I finished last week, last month, last year. I understand this. Everything in life is a choice. Every word, sentence, paragraph and structure in a novel is a choice, too. So far, in this novel, I’m choosing to keep digging to discover where intuition and instinct will bring the story. It’s fun, fascinating and quite lonely to question the assumptions and break rules that writers today are told to follow. I was told recently in a workshop (that I spent $3000 to attend) that “unless you’re a genius, you need to follow one of these five structures.”
That was disappointing. I don’t consider myself a genius, but I know that this story isn’t fitting into one of those taught-to-death and read-to-death structures. It is fitting into a pattern that I have found in some well-received works, so I don’t think I’m on the wrong path, I’m just on one that isn’t well lit. Are you on this path, too?
That’s one reason I came to Substack. I’m looking for a community of Creatives, especially writers, that are willing to listen and to share their own truth to discover a way to tell their story, in whatever medium they express it. Sometimes it will fall into the currently expected guidelines and sometimes it will fall outside those norms. I’m here to support it wherever it lands and to support you. I’m here for the story.
Your free substack subscription inspires me to share my truth. It lets me know I’m not writing into a void (blogging) or to the algorithm (social media). It helps create a community with comments and sharing that in the end, can inspire and support us all. Thank you so much. You are creating a community by subscribing.
For now, all of my newsletter is available for free. I really hate it when I’m reading something good and the paywall pops up, don’t you? We can not pay for everything we want to read and some of us can’t pay for anything. I see you. (I am you.) I’ve turned on paid subscriptions only for those who have the means and the inclination to support this work financially. If you do, please know you have my deepest thanks.
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