Ray Bradbury got into fiction when a stage performer-Mister Electro-pointed a sword at him and said “LIVE FOREVER!”.
And he did just that, albeit through his works.
I think about that story a lot. Especially now that I’m reasonably successful at what I do. Even more here lately, as I legitimately have to think about archiving my work. What we send out into the world, it’s not just our legacy. In the digital age, it’s us-a living, breathing reality that we can craft, edit, and mold to fit what means we have for it. Our creative works-be they audio, fiction, tweets, or art-are more than simply a mask we wear. It’s us, our true selves, projected onto a grand stage.
It’s us grasping at immortality.
Sometimes the stars align just right, and creatives are just as genuine as they appear. The opposite holds true as well. But sometimes, something really fucky happens. Maybe it’s a slip of the tongue, the muse stroking the keys just so. But on very rare occasions, between the sun and the moon, there’s this break. Something happens during the creative process. A slit between the veil, an overlap between mirrored dimensions. A little bit of that fiction bleeds over into the real. Maybe we don’t notice it at first. When we do, maybe we just chuckle about it. It’s a funny thing, a funny inconsequential thing that kinda sorta looks like the other thing.
But it’s still here, it’s still happening. We’re living in this world we made for ourselves. Call it a “self fulfilling prophecy”. Call it anything you want. You can still touch it, taste it, see it, hear it. The fact it started as an act, a story, doesn’t make it any less real.
Today, I would like to touch on how being a creative saved me from myself. View this as an extension of the previous entries here, here and here. Let us begin.
Self Inserts and Denial
There is no creative work that isn’t-at least, in part-an extension of the person writing it. Think of it as a limb, an organ. Being immortal means taking up space-and as creatives, we’ve got to let our bodies grow. Growth and change are inevitable, as the alternative is stagnation and decay. As such, the concept of an author “self-inserting” becomes a recurring thing audiences love to point out. Stephen King enjoyed being in movies about his works. There’s a lot of speculation that Jim Butcher was simply writing about himself in fantasy trappings.
I’m here to tell you right now, self insertion isn’t a bad thing. It’s an unavoidable thing, especially if you take what you do seriously. Whatever comments about “Mary/Marty Sues” you’ve heard, toss them in the garbage. It’s a line of shit by people that couldn’t be fucked enough to create in the first place. It’s the nutsack-low hanging fruit of critique by people with perceptions as empty as their heads. Self inserts happen. Let them happen. Your high-school jocksona and your magical girl selves are both valid, real parts of you. That’s why it hurts so damned much when someone attacks them first.
Trust me, I’m an expert on it. I literally wrote myself into my own work.
While the concept of “Jack”, my performing self, was a combination of magickal-thoughtform and a desperate need to be cool, “Lore Jack” was a bit more base. I looked at the “big rules of writing” you’re not supposed to break. I saw the popular opinions about “self inserts”.
And then I laughed, and laughed, and kept on laughing as the keys clacked beneath my fingertips. I laughed as I hit publish, on a bullshit tumblr blog I’ve since abandoned. I kept on laughing right until someone sent in a request for more. They didn’t care that it was an obvious self insert. They didn’t care that it could come off as some quasi-erotic role play. They wanted more Lore Jack.
Now’s the time to confess that my “lore” works were never supposed to be popular. They were, as many things I produce, me jabbing fun at established rules and ideas. As an absolute absurdist occultist at heart, not having fun simply isn’t encoded into me. Jokes are the only thing that keep this macabre hellscape of reality bearable. The best jokes ascend beyond memes of the moment-they’re articulated, thought out, and creative. When I first wrote Lore Jack into existence over three years ago? He was essentially a faberge middle finger. I dropped hints of what he could be, but never outright admitted to anything.
He was a wizard because of my own occult leanings, and the popular “and then I put on my wizard robe” meme. He was sarcastic because of my entire view of the literature community. The tattoos were added in last minute to make him intriguing. So was the whole affinity for fire. Oh, and he totally was going to have a big-tittied succubus secretary, because of course he was getting laid. Naturally. Jen? She was inspired by a gif created by DieselBrain, and my lovers.
Then came the next request. And the next, and the next. I didn’t realize it at the time-probably because my head is always shoved up my own asshole-but all the details that composed Lore Jack?
They were things I wanted to be. Things I hoped to be. Lore Jack wasn’t different than other self inserts. But he was mine. The more I wrote about him, the more I performed, the more slipping into his voice felt natural. Between the thoughtform and the screen laid the truth. But I kept denying it, kept telling myself it was just a silly self insert. I actually deluded myself into thinking there were plenty of layers between us.
God, I’m a fucking idiot.
Chaos Theory and Fiction as Self Fulfilling Prophecies/Fulfillment
Today I woke up and talked dreamscapes with a self-described (and actual) succubus. We noted the odd synchronicities in life, and had a giggle about it. Yesterday, I joked about how I chose my tattoos (a magick sigil I designed, Odin’s Ravens) because they “felt right”. My friend point blank teased me by asking “Jack, how are you literally your character?”
I didn’t have an answer to that.
In Liber Kaos, Peter J. Carrol says to “enchant long, divine hard”. He, as all magus, justify this view by being purposefully obtuse and burying the lede beneath all kinds of quantum mechanics para-science pseudo babble. The truth of that statement is a summation of using the creative process as therapy, and is pertinent to self inserts, tulpas, thoughtforms and other psychological tools.
If you think you’re the thing, you become the thing-even if you don’t think you will. If you tell yourself something is true, reality makes it so.
For all rallying against the use of “self inserts”, countless creatives-amateurs and pros alike-have used them. Because they’re a part of us, because we desperately want to be cool or immortal. More importantly, we’ve a limited locus of control over our lives. It’s a fact. Born to an existence we didn’t ask for, on a planet that somehow prevails despite us-what we control is incredibly limited. We use self inserts, thought forms, tulpas and more as a means of both coping with that and regaining what we’ve lost. Our own lives, our own legacy.
Now comes the magick. I want you to do me a favor-take a very, very deep breath. Exhale slowly. Thank you. This next bit is a bit cooky, and I want you calm okay?
The rise of the digital age brought self-inserts to the forefront via fanfics and self publishing. The irony though-this is the cooky part-is we’re already living self inserts of our own design. We use the trappings of social media and other creative, instantaneous communication mediums to craft an idealized us. A better us, or simply someone we wish we had the control to be. There’s no shame in that, and no amount of self denial changes that inherent fact.
So if you’re going to be a self insert? Be a good one. Start today. Find something you’ve always wanted to do, and tell yourself you’re that. Always wanted to be an artists? Great, produce something. You’re an artist now, which means you need to work on your craft when you can. Because nobody produces in isolation. Want to be a musician, a performer, or maybe a grumpy wizard? Look in the mirror, look at your posts. You’re already that thing-and if you’re not, it’s as easy as doing.
The power of self inserts lay not in their capacity for embarrassment and self parody, but in their ability to make us-the person behind them, the person wishing-so much more than we ever were. Self inserts grant us the ability to believe in ourselves, and be that us that we know we are.
Between the screen and your hands, between reality and fiction lay the truth.
So live your creations.
Because they’re all so beautiful, just like you.