Introverted Writers Unite?

                    In accordance with the guidelines of the Insecure Writers Support Group, where writers share their insecurities and thoughts, I’m writing my post to coincide with the first Wednesday of the month.

It seems fitting that my next post for the Insecure Writer’s Support Group is about being an introvert. Couple that least-admired trait with being a writer, and you’ve got a double whammy of ‘anti-social’ stink-bombs. I’d advise you don’t invite me to parties. I’m just sayin’....

SeanBeaudoin says, Writing is mentally taxing, emotionally exhausting, and requires a rare and unusual skill set: namely the ability to keep doing it long after all your friends and family have stopped believing in you and spend the majority of every Christmas vacation asking when you’re going to get a real job.

One real advantage to being an introvert is that I do have the ability to keep going long after family has stopped believing in me, in great abundance. An introvert’s secret power is that I self-refer first and foremost in every situation.



According to the book called, The Introvert Advantage: How to Thrive in an Extrovert World, by Marti Laney, Psy.D. only about 25% of the people in the world are Introverts. In my former innocence, I’d imagined we shared this world 50/50 with the extroverts. It came as a bit of a shock to find I’m in the minority. But it sure explains a few things!

Laney states that, Introverts are people who are over-sensitive to Dopamine, so too much external stimulation overdoses and exhausts them. Conversely, Extroverts can’t get enough Dopamine, and they require Adrenaline for their brains to create it. Extroverts also have a shorter pathway and less blood-flow to the brain. The messages of an Extrovert’s nervous system mostly bypass the Broca’s area in the frontal lobe, which is where a large portion of contemplation takes place.

 

So for this reason, we introverts need less exposure to people, public situations, noise, social events, to gain all the information we need to be able to retreat again and process it. This fine sifting process I do once I’m alone comes in handy when I’m writing because I have easy access to those thoughts and memories, about feelings and thoughts and images needed for spinning tales of fiction.

           And yet...most people are still none too keen on my kind.

           Paul Ingraham says, If you act too good for small talk and pretentiously lunge for more “profound” conversations, or avoid any topic that isn’t important enough for your majesty, the only people who will be impressed are other socially inept critters with their own delusions of intellectual grandeur.

           See what I mean?

From the positive point of view, I think that most of the traits of an introvert lean themselves towards the career of being an author: skills of quiet observation, contemplation, and the ability to truly apply ourselves productively to time alone.

Carl King wrote a famous article called 10 Myths about Introverts, which caused a lot of flak at the time because some people took exception to items on the list. I enjoyed the list especially Myth #7 – Introverts are weird. Carl says, Introverts are often individualists. They don’t follow the crowd.

I think it’s for this reason that introverts like myself are able to hack it as writers. We can handle the isolation and very happily exist in a workplace of one for the duration.

But that ability makes us cool not weird. 

Me, at 25, a self-portrait

 

The wonderful author, Maggie Stiefvater said in a Facebook post last month, ‘In conclusion, my life gets better every year. I’m happier now than I was at 25, and I thought I was happy then. I am more myself every year.’

Now there’s something to aspire to - to be more myself every year!

So, I say, I’m an introvert and I’m proud.

I want to be confident of who I am, however I am and stop judging myself as less than anyone else. We all have a place in this world.

 

How about you, are you more yourself with every year? If you’re an introvert, are you embracing it?

 

See ya’ in the funny papers,

Yvette. K. Carol

 

“Be that which you really are: don’t pretend to be that which you are not.” ~ Swami Rama