Claiming With Faith: Why I Write--by Alexandra Wieand

Alexandra Wieand, writer of young adult fiction

Alexandra Wieand and I discovered one another at a café, and I was astonished when she told me that she had already written her first complete novel, despite her young age. Alexandra grew up telling herself stories. She has recently decided to start sharing those stories with other people. We have this in common.

We've had several discussions about the writing life and what it requires, and I think her dedication to learning and practicing the craft of writing is impressive--not to mention, humbling to me personally. One of conversations we had was about the recent post I shared here about what moves me to write: Confessions of An Addict: My Writing Life. I asked Alexandra to answer the same question I had tried to answer: why do I write?

Her answers aren't about perfection. They are a searching, an opening, a dialogue. And in the end, a manifesto from which we can all learn--writers or not. Her perspective is fresh, raw, and real. Her focus is on young adult fiction, and her reasons for this focus in her work will resonate with all of you.

So here's Alexandra.

Amy Gigi Alexander

 

Claiming With Faith: Why I Write, by Alexandra Wieand

Over the last week I have been tossing this question around and around in my mind, going through all my old brainstorming stand-by's- making notes, creating lists, doodling in the margins and daydreaming.
 

Why do I write?
 

This little four word question has sent my soul searching into my past and present, doubting my future and my abilities.
 

I find that it is important to note here that I still consider myself very much a beginner. I am in no way acknowledged as a writer to any one outside of a very small circle of supportive friends and family. I am not as yet published, and my first novel is collecting dust on my hard drive waiting for me to get up the courage to push it out of the nest and see if it can fly. However, I have recently come to terms with the fact that this tortuous, sometimes lonely, sometimes sad life of an artist is the only kind of life I want to live. And so I am claiming with faith that these words I scribble in moleskin notebooks and pound out clumsily on an old keyboard will have some kind of lasting life beyond my own, some kind of reach into the lives of people I may never meet, some kind of ability to bring truth and joy and life to the dark places where those things are needed. So bear with me as I philosophize about something that I actually don't know much about. I have a feeling that I won't know what I am trying to say until I get to the end of this awkward post, and that the epiphany at the end will be an insight into myself.
 

So to the question at hand: why do I write?
 

The most simple answer is I write because I love stories.
 

I was a pretty quiet and lonely little girl. I was old for my age and never really understood how to interact with people. I would much rather have my nose in a book than have a conversation with a real person and I grew up with friends that were made of paper and smelled of ink. I struggled with anxiety and depression when I was too young to know that those words described the fear and longing that I experienced and stories where my safety net. I told myself stories at night when the dark was a little too thick, I brought books to school for lunch times and breaks, and I kept a notebook filled with maps, sketches and short stories with me all the time. My early stories almost all included princesses and mistaken identities, handsome princes, beautiful, faraway places and dusty, mysterious castles.  They took me far away from the life I didn't want to be living and gave me a way to be the kind of person I wanted to be in my real life; brave, graceful, special.
 

I didn't really think about being a writer until much later. In high school I knew that I was good at writing and my English classes were the only ones that I felt at home in. I was a literature major in college with plans to become a teacher when one of my professors encouraged me to take a creative writing class. My world expanded ten-fold through the next two years of creative writing classes. I changed my major, I started a novel, I wrote short stories in my other classes and a dream started to take hold that took nearly five years to actually begin to take shape.
 

I fell in love with young adult literature in junior high and I have stayed firmly in the genre long past when I should have begun to grow out of it. I will venture out of it now and then, and I will never give up my love of Jane Austen and the romantic poets, but there is nothing more fulfilling to me in a book than a kid who wants to save the world and who has just enough childlike faith to think that he can, or a girl who is falling out of  falling in love after having her heart broken.

I think there is something vastly underrated in children's and young adult literature being considered immature and childish. Yes, when we are thirty, or fifty or one-hundred, we might look back at the victories and woes of our fifteen year old selves and shake our heads and chuckle at our innocence and immaturity, but when you are fifteen and that boy doesn't ask you to the dance, it is heartbreaking. And the first heart break is always the hardest.
 

That being said, I want to give credence to the stories that I write for teenagers. I want to take their angst seriously, I want to raise the bar for what the grown up world thinks they can understand, I want to give them better role models than girls who fall in love with vampires, and better heroes to hope for than selfish, controlling man-boys. I want to share the stories of strong women who can lead armies and change their world, and be strong enough to let themselves fall in love. I want to break the mold of uncomplicated women who are more props than characters. I want my heroes to be flawed. To be broken and loveable, to have immeasurable talents and immeasurable failures. Men who make us question what makes people do bad things and who are man enough to own up to their mistakes.
 

I write because I want to make a difference.

I want to impact the world in a positive way and for me, stories are an avenue to do that.

I want the words that fly from my fingertips to make a difference: to give someone strength they didn't know they possessed, to give someone hope that the world is not as dark and cold as they once thought it was, to bring a smile to the face that is more often stained with tears.
 

Maybe my goals are too small, or maybe they are ridiculously too big, or too dramatic and angst ridden. But these are the goals that keep me coming back to my laptop when I am tired, that keep me reworking the stories that don't make sense.
 

I am still working on becoming the author I want to be, defining who I am and what I write and with my first book coming out this summer the idea that was once only a dream is quickly becoming something very real. And the idea is terrifying. But spending a few days really processing the reasons that I keep coming back to the stories has given me a renewed hope and sense of calling. I know that the stories will always be there and I have no choice but to keep sharing them.

Alexandra Wieand

( Alexandra's story and image ©Alexandra Wieand 2014. You can read more of Alexandra's posts on her new blog, The Talking Whale . Her first novel, Juliet's Daughters, will be published soon. And please, leave a "like" or a comment or share this post, just below! Thank you.)