Introducing Mysterious Realm
A newsletter exploring the mysterious side of the creative process
Welcome to Mysterious Realm, a monthly newsletter for writers and readers.
Here you’ll find:
Reflections on the stranger side of the creative process
Craft lessons from my reading list
Author interviews
Other mysterious titbits.
In short, it’s a writing class in email form.
A little about the name
“You are now entering the realm of mystery”
— Carl Jung
I read this somewhere in Carl Jung’s prodigious Memories, Dreams, Reflections and it stuck in my brain—part warning, part welcome. Jung may have been reflecting on the fledgling stage of dream analysis, but for me, it described what it often feels like when I sit down to write.
Anyone who has tried their hand at writing knows that the process can get a bit… strange. Sometimes you’re busily making up people and places and dreaming up goals and crises and mixing it all together into the soupy mix of plot—and sometimes, you’re merely transcribing an idea that seems to have arrived in your head from some other mysterious realm. It’s undoubtedly weird, it’s frequently wonderful and endlessly fascinating.
And then there’s the less mystical but equally important consideration of the writer’s craft. The rules and tools. The conscious brain’s effort to enforce order on the unconscious. In short, all of the things about writing that can be taught.
This newsletter is about the intersection between content and craft, the conscious and unconscious parts of the creative process, and how to embrace both.
We’ll kick things off with a look at how fictional food can serve as your character’s emotional barometer, using Anna Snoekstra’s The Ones We Love as a case study. Keep an eye out for that next week.
Yours in words,
Susie
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