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Creative Identity

Your unique fingerprint, your stamp, your style— your Creative Identity. A murder mystery novelist, a period-drama enthusiast, a lover of handmade sculptures. What speaks to you when you write something—the language, structure and imagery, or the plot and characters.

“There are two kinds of people who sit around all day thinking about killing people... mystery writers and serial killers. I'm the kind that pays better.”  ― Richard Castle, from American television drama, Castle.

Your Creative Identity may be exceptionally diverse, or centred around one genre and creative practice. Jane Austen, for example, was primarily a romance novelist, leaving clear creative marks on the world— having eight (if not more) adaptions of her novel Pride and Prejudice made.   

“I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of anything than of a book! -- When I have a house of my own, I shall be miserable if I have not an excellent library.”  ― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

 “The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.” 

― Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey

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The first time that the sun rose on thine oath To love me, I looked forward to the moon To slacken all those bonds which seemed too soon And quickly tied to make a lasting troth. Quick-loving hearts, I thought, may quickly loathe; And, looking on myself, I seemed not one For such man’s love!—more like an out-of-tune Worn viol, a good singer would be wroth To spoil his song with, and which, snatched in haste, Is laid down at the first ill-sounding note. I did not wrong myself so, but I placed A wrong on thee. For perfect strains may float ’Neath master-hands, from instruments defaced,— And great souls, at one stroke, may do and doat.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Sonnets from the Portuguese, 1850, XXXII

Maintaining and sharing one’s personal truths, addressing honestly, baldly and without guise, one’s individual failings, quirks and strengths, are the fundamental aspects of Authenticity. Sincerely confronting aspects of your identity and allowing these aspects to be viewed by others can become experiences of personal growth and acceptance (Brooks, 2001, Pg. 9) Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Sonnets from the Portuguese are exceptional confessions of not only her love, but her feelings of inadequacy, of inferiority to others, and her strident fear of being in love. Browning explored and confronted her understandings of her identity through the written word, and in doing so, shared with the world a true depiction of the trials of falling in love.