How my nonfiction and fiction connect define my overall brand.
I began writing fiction some forty years ago. I was 9.
That first work of sci-if – called Wildfire – was imaginative and literally colorful (hand-written and illustrated by me). But it might also have caused some psychologists to question my mindset (spoiler alert: The kids – who are the protagonists of the story – end up killing not just all the robots created to take over everything, but all the adults, too).
Over the years, I wrote more sci-fi, fantasy, and Steampunk sporadically. For all the finished works I have, there are probably an equal number of unfinished, half-started, and incomplete works, too.
Journaling in my teen years evolved into LiveJournal in my 20s, then blogging after that. Via this nonfiction writing, I started developing and exploring my life philosophy.
This gave way to a deeper look into mindfulness, conscious reality creation, self-awareness, and similar ideas that all come down to the same thing: Choice.
Rather than let life live me, I determined I preferred to choose how my life could be.
It’s not perfect, and there are and have been lots of pitfalls. Yet I believe in what I’ve chosen and the ongoing exploration of these “self-help” concepts.
One struggle, however, when it comes to branding myself, has been connecting these seemingly disparate concepts (i.e. nonfiction and fiction). This has been plaguing me for almost a decade.
Now, I have begun to work out just how I can connect all of it under one brand umbrella.
I am a storyteller
When I started to put more focus into my writing, I laid the foundation for this notion.
For my website, the tagline I created is Writer/Editor/Voice Artist/World-Builder. The last should have been the hint to me about the overarching concept.
World-builder has two potential definitions.
The first definition applies clearly to fiction. I build worlds in my sci-fi, fantasy, and Steampunk works that have similarities to our own – yet differ fantastically.
In some worlds, people can use magic. On other worlds, there are sentient aliens with their own physiologies. Each world I build has its own unique and individual qualities.
The second definition applies to nonfiction. I share ideas for and work with mindfulness, positivity, conscious reality creation, and generally taking control of our individual life experiences.
How is that world-building? Because too many people just let life live them. They do their daily routines, slog through life believing themselves the victims of circumstance, without choices, and stuck here or there.
That’s only true when you believe it to be true. When you start to see that you have the power to be empowered – and make choices and decisions about how to live your life – you can build your corner of the world.
That is how my nonfiction is world-building, too.
But from an even broader expanse, there’s a greater concept overarching all my work. Because how I do my world-building – fiction or nonfiction – is always the same.
I am a storyteller.
The words you’re reading here? They are telling you a story. This story is as true for me as the stories I tell in fiction are for the characters of those stories.
I am now working with an amazing coach to find ways to expand my reach as a storyteller.
My nonfiction and fiction connect more than I realized
While there is literal world-building in my fiction – there’s always figurative world-building, akin to my nonfiction work.
How do I connect this?
For example – in The Source Chronicles series, more than one of my characters goes through some serious personal growth. Their assumptions, biases, and prejudices get challenged. Things happen that force them to choose to grow and prosper – or shrink and whither. I could easily argue that, in many ways, the personal growth of the central characters is the central plot of the story.
Those choices will go on to impact their whole world.
That’s not so dissimilar to how the things I do in nonfiction work, too.
In fact, in all my works of fiction, there is similar character growth and change. They are all flawed, each has their foibles and biases and so on, and choose to take control over their “destiny” – or not. I love to delve into the psyche of my characters.
This is how my fiction and nonfiction connect. It’s in sharing how people – real or imagined – empower themselves or not via the choices and decisions they make.
In other words – how we choose to assume what control we can over our lives and all that we experience in them.
When you get right down to it – the enormous gap I envisioned between these two notions is naught but a crack.
Which explains one more real-world matter.
How we each connect and disconnect
The beauty of social media is how it connects us all, across the globe. The failing of social media is how it expands cognitive dissonance and confirmation bias.
Who controls the elements of media and social media expands the disconnect further. Hence why so many in Russia are utterly unaware of the real why regarding the invasion of Ukraine. Likewise, it’s how science-deniers, anti-vaxxers, and far-right extremists maintain traction, too.
Whether via my works of fiction or nonfiction – I seek to help people make more connections over the disconnections. My focus is to help more people be empowered and see how we can work together – even though we’re individuals with unique and separate perceptions of reality.
As a storyteller, I am a world-builder. But that’s not just applied to fiction – I am striving to apply it more readily to nonfiction, too. Because I believe this is a world of abundance, potential, and possibilities.
Thus, we can all grow, evolve, and experience some amazing and awesome things.
Finally – the perfect example to connect nonfiction and fiction, I believe, is Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist. Though a work of fiction, it makes nonfiction connections that are utterly empowering to anyone and everyone. If you have never read this book – please do so (or listen to the audiobook, narrated beautifully by Jeremy Irons).
How my nonfiction and fiction connect to define my overall brand is becoming increasingly clear to me. I am a storyteller and world-builder. That’s what I do and who I am. And I am excited to work with that to grow – and share that growth as far and wide as possible.
Please take a moment to check out the collection of my published works, which can be found here.
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