Sage Adderly has introduced me to the wonderful world of Cosmic Smash Books. When I first heard her talking about it in the Quest to Self in July, I was skeptical. Yes, I’m a creative being, but my creative expression has never been a visual art. It’s been performance or written. My perfectionism told me that I “couldn’t” do a Smash Book because it was messy.
I’m here to report how wrong I was!
On week 2 of Book in 90, Sage had us use CSB to explore our characters. It spoke to me SO much. I felt like it took my characters from being 2D generic beings to full-fledged 3D people. I discovered the “why” behind each of their character flaws and quirks. They were no longer tools to move the main character’s story along, but on a journey of their own.
I used CSB to explore each character and the RPG quest itself. “Meet” my characters through the pages they inspired:
These are the 5 characters that are participating in the RPG Quest, but I’m thinking I may need to create pages for some other characters as well. There are coworkers and neighbors and family members that make repeated appearances, and I should probably explore them as well.
The interesting thing about these 5 characters is that they each have a tiny bit of me in them. None of them is exactly like me, but each one has one of my flaws/struggles. Alanna has social anxiety and fears rejection and doing things “wrong”. Irsina struggles with loneliness and depression and has become adept at hiding it from others. Xander can be overly critical of others because he has impossibly high standards for himself. Darrak lashes out at people to cover his insecurity. Lily is a people-pleaser that never does anything for herself because she’s so concerned about ensuring that everyone else is happy.
As I said, none of the characters is 100% me, but I can relate to each of them. The CSB pages also showed me their past trauma that shaped them. Now, those stories may or may not end up in the novel, but knowing their history helps me to understand them and how they might react in various situations.
I’ve also been scheduling writing “events” in the B90 FB page to keep me accountable for writing. While most of the others in the group don’t necessarily post that they are writing, several people said in the last zoom session that they have appreciated the events. I think being the “host” of these events helps me feel obligated. I had a great week of writing last week and totally attribute it to the Write Together sessions. I have scheduled more for this week, so hopefully it works again.
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