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Rowan Mangan

Writer. Mom. Wild Inventurer.

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The Story is Smarter Than You

December 12, 2022 Leave a Comment

Dear friends,

Yesterday I had a moment. It was a dreary Sunday and I was putting together the ingredients for a meal that would spend the afternoon in the slow cooker, sending delicious smells through our house. My toddler was napping, and I was listening to an audiobook. Cooking + audiobook = Ro’s happy place.

This is my second listen-through of Matt Bell’s brilliant Refuse to be Done, a terrific read about the process of drafting (and redrafting) a novel. Now that I’m starting to get pretty serious about the writing of my next book, the book was hitting me in a new way.

As writers, we’re lucky to live in a time where so much expertise about the craft is available. One nugget of wisdom that I love is expressed perfectly by Stephen King’s in On Writing: “Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us just get up and go to work.”

Taking this idea a step further, Bell talks about writing towards inspiration, and about how the first draft can be a process of revealing our own story to us. He quotes this mind-blowing passage from Lucy Curran:

You should look at the material you produce to find your material… The story is always smarter than you—there will be patterns of theme, image and idea that are much savvier and more complex than you could have come up with on your own… Become a student of your work in progress. Every aspect of a story has its own story.

Friends, can you dig it? THE STORY IS ALWAYS SMARTER THAN YOU. I nearly cut my hand open on a tin of tomatoes when these words landed.

I freaking love this bizarre alchemy process we call storytelling. The way it calls on us to pull experience through the film of experience, soaking and steeping the moments we live within the moments we imagine, until fact and fiction, objectivity and subjectivity, become blended and distilled in the pot. Until they fill our houses with their rich new aromas.

A small child looks into a mirror in an outdoors area
Storymaking in action

And it follows, doesn’t it, that this process of storymaking is infinite—a hall of mirrors in which we are all ultimately characters in another, larger, story? In seasons of loss or disappointment, doesn’t it feel reassuring to see ourselves in the thrall of a master storyteller somewhere? It does to me.

I don’t mean this literally; it’s a story. And I don’t mean it to be confused with the stories religions tell. I don’t think these challenging seasons befall us as the consequence of sin, or because we have lessons to learn, or because our reward will be greater in heaven. No, I think that it’s a privilege to play out the complex themes of a story that’s not interested in skimming the surfaces. Instead, as Sunday has given way to Monday morning and I’m looking ahead to leftovers, I’m grateful for everything that makes this story richer, and ultimately—for its complexity—more delicious.

A rich stew in a slow cooker
Om nom nom

This article originally appeared on Rowan’s Wild Inventures substack newsletter. To subscribe and get all Rowan’s posts in your inbox, head over to Wild Inventures on substack now. 

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"The cultural imperative to adhere to certain soci "The cultural imperative to adhere to certain social rules is extremely strong. And when we don’t adhere to those rules, whether accidentally or not, we can experience what Brené Brown calls a “vulnerability hangover”—the feeling that we’ve exposed more than the culture allows.

And speaking of vulnerable exposure, Martha shares a hilarious story involving nakedness at the spa—entirely accidental!—that led to a 25-minute conversation where everyone pretended it hadn’t happened. Culture again, folks. It’s powerful.

In this special BeWild Files episode of Bewildered, Martha and Rowan take a deep dive into the subject of vulnerability hangovers—and the hangover cures that work wonders for them. Be sure to listen! (Towels optional.)"

Listen at the link in our bio—or on your favorite podcasting app.

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But one size doesn’t fit all days or all folks or just the infinite and ever-loving LIFEYNESS of it all. My rules reflect the ways lifeyness shows up for me. You might need to make your own. 

You can read and subscribe to my Substack newsletter at the link in my bio.
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SPOTIFY AND THE BEWILDERED PODCAST 🛠️ We've SPOTIFY AND THE BEWILDERED PODCAST 

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🧑‍🔧Bewildered (and The Gathering Pod) are both back on Spotify, but you may need to resubscribe to the individual podcasts in the app.

🔍If you’re having trouble finding Bewildered, either use the search function in Spotify or use the "Listen in your favorite podcast app" link in our bio to find the direct link. 

💗 We love and appreciate all of our listeners. Each of you is astonishingly intelligent, exceptionally good-looking and with excellent taste. Thanks for all your support, possums! 😘😘😘
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We have some exciting new episodes of @bewilderedp We have some exciting new episodes of @bewilderedpodcast coming up!

Do you have something you’re trying to figure out? Something where the forces of culture seem to be an obstacle to your true nature? Follow the link in my bio to leave a voice message for @themarthabeck and me… and maybe appear in a future episode! Love and snuggles x

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