Today we’d like to introduce you to Analei Skye.
Hi Analei, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today.
Writing has always been a part of me. I was the kid who, from the moment I could pick up a crayon- wrote outlandish plays, poetry, and stories. I used to make my brother and his friends “act” in them. They weren’t fans. Hah, And I genuinely believed I would become a writer one day. Until my first-year English class at university, one of my professors hated my writing voice. He effectively told me I was a terrible writer and would starve to death or die a slow alcoholic death if I continued on this path. The culmination of his opinion of me and the fact that my family was very practical led me to pursue a different path entirely. My family drilled into me the necessity of making a sensible choice. I pursued psychology, and dual majored in business, going on to obtain an MBA as well as an MSc. I loved psychology, and for a long while, I worked with children who had been abused and abandoned, which I also loved, but I always felt like something was missing. One year, I took the leap. I saved up a year’s worth of earnings and forged my path. I haven’t looked back since, and for the first time in my career life, I genuinely feel fulfilled on my path. I now have written eight novels under my pen name, multiple ghostwritten novels, and several short stories and editorials for a plethora of publications. I wouldn’t change my journey; my stint as a therapist gave me the life experience, emotional depth, and maturity to actually become a writer. I’m not sure that I could have become one without the other.
We all face challenges, but looking back, would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
It hasn’t been smooth at all; in fact, it’s grown me in innumerable ways. Mainly, I would have this huge vision and want to race right to the end without first living out my journey. And as a writer, that journey requires a lot of discipline, and risk-taking, a willingness to face oneself and step into some dark human emotions. It also tests one’s ability to weather criticism and persist against a lot of odds. But I think every person who decides to feed themselves from their words gets to a point where they tell themselves,
“I have to do this. No matter what.” And so, you devote your all to it. It becomes your holy calling; You become its nun. I needed the pressure to starve or write, so I saved up a year’s worth of income, quit my job, and pursued writing full-time. And then I was slap-kicked right into reality. I was a novice. Like all novices, I had to start at the bottom of the mountain, and it’s a big mountain; Everest big. It wasn’t a year-long dream; it’s a several year-long dream; I didn’t factor that in. With my savings depleting, I faced a hard choice. Do I move back into the workforce? Do I quit? Ultimately, I realized I couldn’t quit, or my dream would die there. I’d come too far. Yet, I didn’t know how to move forward.
Writing felt like slogging through quicksand, blind, with both arms tied behind my back. I received rejection after rejection after rejection; they might as well have been stamped.
“You’re a terrible writer. No one cares. Sincerely… the people who don’t think you’re good enough,” because that’s how they felt. Like, little pinpricks deflating my dream.
And even the articles that were published faced different challenges. They were put on the altar of public opinion, and everyone who sees the world differently has an opinion and wants to voice it. Yet, the place where writing comes from is so vulnerable it feels personal, even though I’ve since learned to weather it. It was challenging.
Each writer has their own version of my story. Their own personal demons gnawing away at them. Comparison, procrastination, rejection, stress, time management, fear of not being good enough, lack of skill, their voice being out of step with the majority. Their ability to find their voice or the courage to use it. There are so many nuances.
Writing is hard. The journey looked like this for me: come home from your day job (I had to go back into the workforce, one year was just not enough), stay up late. Write. Lunch break. Write. Carpool drop off. Write. Wake up before the world has had its first sip of coffee. Write. Go to your favorite spot. Write. Fear. Rejection. Fear. Write anyway. It takes seven drafts to create a first. And then so many more drafts from there to create something coherent.
This path was not easy. Despite it all, I fumbled through.
I’m now a multi-published author; that doesn’t mean I’m a good one, but I’m glad I persisted. Learning to navigate the trenches was not easy, but there is something deeply fulfilling about enduring to the summit, even if it’s only the first of many peaks.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I’m a novelist who has built a successful writing career, and as funny as it sounds, I’m most proud of the journey. I often hear from people who have a “book idea,” and I smile at the naivety because I used to be that person too, you know? As simple as it sounds to write a book, it’s one of the most intense and deeply trying processes. It’s not as simple as sitting at a computer and clicking away. Writing a novel actually tests you at every level. The ability to take that journey from inception to completion is one to celebrate. Especially because the writing of the book is step one; what people don’t always understand is the emotional toll of writing. For me, in particular, I’m a character-driven writer; I write inside the bubble of emotion. Meaning I feel the emotion first, and that informs the scene. When I’m writing about love, that’s an easy emotion to feel. But suicide, a topic of one of my upcoming books, When Darkness Falls, and heartbreak as in Surfer Girl, or even grief which I tackle in my coming-of-age novel, Niahla Hope. Those emotions are messier and much more difficult to process. They require me to open myself up [for months at a time] and experience deep sadness or pain to take readers on an honest journey. I willingly walk into the emotional spaces most humans avoid at all costs. And that’s also what makes writing so beautiful as an art form. For two reasons; the first is that our brains can’t distinguish between actual real-life events and beautiful prose. It’s scientifically proven that the same parts that light up in the brain when a person is falling in love or sky diving are the same parts that light up when a person is reading about those things, so basically, reading about experiences is almost the same as living them. As a writer, my job is to take people on journeys, whether that be first love, heartbreak, or magical quests– it’s actually pretty cool that I get to invent entire worlds for people to escape into in the intimacy of their bedrooms or reading nooks. Secondly, in writing, unlike other art forms, I only have a blank canvas and twenty-six characters to create an entire journey that someone can choose to experience; unlike screenplays or movies, I don’t have sound, or timing, or actors, or colors, or anything really, I have my imagination, and limited tools to shape an entire experience, I really love the challenge of it, and that’s also something I’m really proud of about my profession.
We’d love to hear about how you think about risk taking?
I am not averse to risk-taking, although that hasn’t always been the case. As a little girl raised in chaos, I valued certainty very much because it gave my life a sense of order that didn’t otherwise exist. It became a coping mechanism of sorts, the thing that kept me “safe,” and then it became the very thing that was a stranglehold on my dreams. Because if you’re clinging to known outcomes, then that huge, massive dream you want to accomplish, there’s just not enough space for it to be made a reality, you know? If I need to know everything will be okay before attempting something great, I’ll never have enough courage or enough faith to make the leap necessary. I learned how to make the leap because I held on to certainty at all costs, but even with all the safety nets in the world, I remember one specific incident when everything came crashing down anyway. That is when I realized I could finally breathe and that I would be completely okay even when everything totally sucked. In reality, I learned how to let go and make the leap through failure. It was the clawing my way out of the rubble that instilled in me I have the strength to face anything; from that point on, I always took the unknown path. I never feared uncertain outcomes anymore. In fact, it now defines my life. Through some very trying experiences, I have learned that life is finite. And so, I won’t stay in a relationship or career or inside a decision that doesn’t fully feed my soul, that is safe instead of right. I don’t believe in fixed decisions, and I have learned the hard way that life isn’t particularly safe. That the best, most fulfilling life must be lived fully, and that is actually a pretty scary and uncertain place because it takes a lot of risk, and courage, and course correction. One of my favorite quotes by Joseph Campell sums it up perfectly, “If you can see your path laid out in front of you step by step, you know it’s not your path. Your own path you make with every step you take. That’s why it’s your path. “
Contact Info:
- Website: www.myunfilteredheart.com
- Instagram: @analeiskye
- Facebook: @analeiskye
- Twitter: @analeiskye
