We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Patricia Crisafulli a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Patricia, thank you so much for taking the time to share your lessons learned with us and we’re sure your wisdom will help many. So, one question that comes up often and that we’re hoping you can shed some light on is keeping creativity alive over long stretches – how do you keep your creativity alive?
I’ve been a writer all my life, pursuing a dream that goes back to childhood. I became a journalist and moved to New York City and then to Chicago. I left journalism more than twenty years ago to become a communications consultant. Then there is that other part of my writing life, as an author. I began in nonfiction, including a New York Times bestseller. While I am grateful to have had these opportunities, another kind of writing always pulled at me: fiction.
I’ve had to keep my creativity alive–and with it, my dream of writing fiction–through years of trial and error, rejection and redirection. While my dream always inspired me, creativity lives in the doing. Part of the doing is continuously polishing my craft.
I went back to school at age 52–a five-year program at Northwestern University where I earned a master of fine arts (MFA) degree in creative writing and, when I graduated, received the Distinguished Thesis Award for my novel-in-progress. That was a huge boost, but not the end of the story.
A wise editor encouraged me to reimagine my novel as a mystery. That sent me back to square one, but it also reignited my creativity in a new genre. The discipline and devotion to my creative expression paid off in my Ohnita Harbor Mystery Series. The first novel in the series, The Secrets of Ohnita Harbor, was published by Woodhall Press in 2022, followed by The Secrets of Still Waters Chasm in 2023.
Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?
In my mystery novels–The Secrets of Ohnita Harbor and The Secrets of Still Waters Chasm–I take readers on a journey into places where ordinary life is interrupted by extraordinary events. It all weaves together into a story that reminds us that, in the midst of daily life, more is happening than meets the eye.
In mysteries, I have found a great way to explore a theme that I absolutely love to write about: the intersection between the ordinary and the extraordinary. It’s the hero’s journey—the protagonist’s quest of discovery about herself and the world around her. It takes an inciting incident for that journey to begin, and that’s what a mystery provides!
The twists and turns of the plot not only advance the story, but also unfold a rich emotional topography—anger, fear, sadness, jealousy, hope, longing, love. My protagonist, Gabriela Domenici, is confronted with all these feelings as she becomes embroiled in murder investigations and also authentication of rare artifacts. (In my first novel, the artifact is a medieval cross; in the second, it is a 200-year-old nautical schematic). Along the way, she encounters a host of characters, some trustworthy, some enigmatic, and some menacing. Sometimes, Gabriela doesn’t know who or what to trust—including her own instincts.
And this brings me to why I believe we need mysteries for more than just their immense entertainment value. Mysteries are an exercise in critical thinking. They teach us to look beyond the surface. We ask more questions, dig more deeply, and seek out clues and connections that lead to answers that were previously hidden from us.
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
Three qualities have been essential to my journey, which I recommend to everyone following a creative path: discernment, resilience, and reignition.
Discernment is what helps us find the truth amid the ashes of rejection and failure–both of which are inevitable whenever we push ourselves into the unknown. Not all feedback is accurate or helpful–in fact it can be highly subjective. Discernment helps us sift through the ashes cooled over time (not the hot embers of a rejection that just landed in our email inbox). We read through what agents, editors, and others tell us so we can discern what resonates as useful information. The best feedback I’ve ever received was a suggestion that I move away from literary fiction and pursue the mystery genre that plays to my strengths of developing small-town settings and quirky characters.
Resilience keeps our dreams alive and allows us to come back to write (and fight) another day. One of the biggest challenges to my resilience is my own inner critic that stirs up self-doubts about my talent and my worthiness. Occasionally, my inner critic articulates helpful questions—like how I needed to do more to market my new novel. Most of the time, though, my inner critic is neither prophetic nor productive. Against a chorus of doubts and fear, I need resilience to recommit to my dream–and stay on the creative path.
Reignition. We take in feedback, discern truth from unhelpful criticism, rise resiliently to the challenge, and keep going. That’s reignition. Overnight success is a myth. We need to reignite our passions so we can recommit to the process and to ourselves. When we start again, it is not from the proverbial square one. We have experience in where we succeeded and how we failed. Plus, we’ve developed both muscles and calluses for strength and protection.
What do you do when you feel overwhelmed? Any advice or strategies?
Burnout is so common these days. We’re all overwhelmed after years of intense work, with few breaks and vacations. Personally, I had a rapidly growing business, a cross-country move, a three-book deal, and my sister died, which left me with certain family responsibilities. Burned out!!
But here’s the thing. I found that doing less was an impossibility. I needed to do more …. that is, of what I loved to recharge my battery. During the times when I’ve felt overwhelmed, my fiction has saved me. I make time for it, just as I do daily exercise. (As an aside, I’m a runner–and whenever I need a new idea or to rewrite a scene, I hit the trail for a chance of venue and perspective.) A combination of writing and running are restorative for me.
Yes, that means more to do and sometimes less sleep. But the creativity fuels my passion. So that’s my cure for burnout and feelings of being overwhelmed. Don’t try to turn it all off – turn on more of what feeds your soul.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.FaithHopeandFiction.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/triciacrisafulli/
