Authenticity

Sometimes, it seems like just the right words come along at just the right time, when you most need to hear them. They aren't always handed to you with pomp and fanfare; not always a sermon, or a lecture, or anything grand and life-changing. Sometimes it's as simple as a few lines in a magazine. 

Yesterday, my mom handed me the latest edition of The Magnolia Journal and said, "I think you really need to read Jo's letter in the front." This issue's theme is "authenticity," and in her letter from the editor, Joanna writes: 

"Authenticity can't be copied; it can't be false." It seems to me that there are very few absolutes in this life, only a handful of things that are true to their core. If our authenticity is one of these rare, undisputed truths, why then does it seem to be such a difficult part of ourselves to live out? Perhaps we choose to hide a little bit of who we truly are each time we compare our lack to someone else's plenty. Or we muddy the truth about ourselves whenever we imitate a glossier version of our current reality. Or maybe when we hush our own voice with the loud noise of commotion, we slowly begin to fade back. And once we're covered up and the real us is quiet, we find that we're forced to look around, to other people and other things, for evidence of who we are. 

Simple words. Honest words. But they resonated with me deeply. Because, lately, when I step back and conduct a self-examination, I feel rather like a shadow of myself. Because I have steadily, for the last two years, pulled back. Withheld. Self-edited. 

Working with horses is an incredibly straightforward business. Yes, there's always interpersonal drama, always barn gossip, but horses are honest. You can't fake your way into being a good equestrian, a good manager, a good trainer, instructor, and horsewoman. In the years that I managed a barn, I was completely, wholly confident in my competency. I was not, and am still not someone who appreciates bragging, but I knew what I was about. And I was every inch me. 

If riding is one great passion, then writing is the other. It's something I've worked toward, something in which I've practiced, and studied, and educated myself in all the ways I know best to do so. It's something I love. There's a particular thrill when you're in deep on a story, and you know all the characters, and you're arranging their lives, taking them on adventures, bringing them to awakenings. Storytelling - the art of it - is something I will always cherish. 

But the business of selling books is a strange and often disheartening one. We start out with the best of intentions, wanting to present our true, authentic selves to the world, and it doesn't take long for people on the internet to start telling you who you ought to be instead. "No," they say, "that's not you, this is you." 

"Get in your box," they say. 

"You're just like X, Y, and Z authors over there," they say.

"Write a book about this one character," they say, "or else I'll never read you again."

My favorite: "If you don't write a book about Fox, then you aren't the author I thought you were, and I'm really disappointed in you."

The reason I've mentioned my anti-White Wolf reader mail so often is because it still, to this day, boggles my mind. It felt like it came from out of left field. It was unwarranted, and most definitely inappropriate. And, I'll admit, it knocked me for a loop. I'd spent the last few years blogging, and writing, and publishing, and posting on social media, interacting with readers, and I'd thought that, all that time, I'd been presenting this authentic portrait of myself as not just someone who wrote some books, but as an artist, and as a lover of art. Someone who loves books, and films, and comics, and poetry, and who wants earnestly to be able to conjure emotion and empathy the way my favorites have. The reason I'd enjoyed writing Dartmoor was because I did not see it as catering to a genre and its limited standards. I'd thought, I'd hoped, that readers enjoyed the series because they loved the characters, the big misfit family, their adventures, their growth, their unlikely friendships. And so I thought starting a new series, a series that was also about a big misfit family, their adventures, their growth, and unlike friendships would be met with excitement - rather than the plethora of "don't write this" and "I won't read this" emails I received instead. 

Get over it, Lauren, you're thinking, maybe. And yes, I will. I have. But I won't lie and say that it didn't hurt my feelings. I have a thick skin, and I'm stubborn, and I routinely thumb my nose at anyone who dares to tell me what I should do when it comes to the things that I love. But that was the point when I started to doubt. When I thought, "Maybe it was never about anything I was bringing to the table as an author. Maybe it was only ever about the superficial trappings. The motorcycles, the leather." 

I don't intend to paint everyone with the same brush, not at all. Many were kind, many have been encouraging, and White Wolf's overall reception was better than I could have hoped. To the readers who've taken a chance on the new series, who comment, who like it, who have reviewed it, I can't thank you enough, truly. And I also thank anyone who might not be into vampires, but who was kind anyway. 

But I am human. And I doubted. And I wondered. And I began to look at everything I did - be it blogging, photo posting, or book writing - through the lens of "will anyone like this? Or will I get more hate mail?" Once you start to question yourself you can't stop, and you pull back, and you put up walls, and you hide the real you, occasionally lobbing things over to the other side that you hope is what your audience wants. And all that time you're feeling depressed, and a little hopeless, and your confidence wanes. 

Writing Dragon Slayer was an incredibly cathartic experience. It felt like a reclaiming; it felt like it was what I was supposed to be doing. These characters, these stories, this series. It felt like coming home. I was having fun again. And in the past six months I've started no less than half-a-dozen new WIPs that I hope to someday write through to completion. I've looked at my blog, and known sadness, because I've all but stopped blogging. I've spent a lot of time thinking "no one cares what I like, or think, or care about," and so I've closed that door. I love doing writing exercises, and sharing snippets, and tidbits, even if they never go anywhere. But I stopped; I held myself back. 

That's changing, though. That changes today. For too long I've let doubt and worry control what I do; I've let it control the art that I'm willing to share, and I want to be the old, confident me again. The one who doesn't care at all what anyone thinks, or how harshly anyone's judging me. Putting yourself out there on social media is a kind of terrifying that I hate; you're left raw and exposed, and so easily you can feel like it's your followers with the power, that they have some say in what you do. And they don't. They would only change you until you were just what they wanted...and then grow bored of you.

I say all this not to fuss. Not to blame anyone. I'm not angry - not with anyone but myself. And to, hopefully, say what someone else might need to hear. What I badly needed to hear from Joanna Gaines yesterday. I admire Jo deeply, and I wish I had a tenth of her grace and poise - alas, I'm a horse person, and we're a little more blunt than that. 

I said at the beginning of 2019 that I wanted to do things differently; to do them better. And I do. I want to have fun. I want to be excited about sitting down at the computer. I want to blog, and post content, and share my excitement with everyone. I want to gush about the things that I love. I want to simply be me, whether or not the real me is the kind of easily-packaged, ready-for-market, simply-defined author persona that anyone wants. 

If you're reading this, and you're thinking Lauren, I've been supportive this whole time! I know you have. I see you, I hear you, and I appreciate you more than you know. I want to write books for you. For the ones who want to go on adventures. I grew up loving Lizzy Bennet, and Sherlock Holmes, and Eowyn of Rohan, and Steve Rogers, and I'll never stop striving to create characters that readers might love the same way. 

And for the doubters: If you spend all your time wanting an artist to meet all your very personal requirements, you're going to miss out on all the amazing things you never expected.