Healing writes : restoring the authorial self through creative practice : and Birthright, a speculative fiction novel

Abstract

Writing the speculative fiction novel, Birthright, and this accompanying exegesis, led me to challenge the validity of the disclaimer usually found in the front matter of most novels that the story is purely imaginary, bears no relationship to reality, with the characters not being inspired by anyone known or unknown to the author. For the first time in my career, I began to consider how writers including myself might frequently revisit themes and ideas which resonate with our lived experiences. I call this restorying, an unconscious process whereby aspects of one's life history are rewritten through one's creative work to achieve a more satisfactory result. Through personal contact, studying authors' accounts of their creative practices, and surveying current literature on narrative therapy, a case is made that, far from being generated purely from imagination, writers' creative choices are driven by an unconscious need to restory ourselves.