Guest Blog: Debbie Aruta
Debbie Aruta is a writer of short stories and poetry. She currently holds her B.A. in English and hopes to earn her MFA in creative writing. She has traveled all over Europe but calls Georgia home. She is also a photographer and captures the macro beauty of nature that most people miss.
She has led both writing and reading groups and writes from her heart. She is an avid book reader who wears her heart on her sleeve. Right now she is in love with everything about life and plans to one day take over the literary world.
Q: Who is your greatest literary influence?
A: Virginia Woolf has influenced my writing since reading my first book of hers; Mrs. Dalloway. Woolf’s stream of consciousness writing is an acquired taste. When I write, at least the first draft, I do stream of consciousness writing. I feel, like she did, that if you cut your words off before they have time to come to fruition then you will essentially lose their true meaning. Part of the original thought will be gone forever and what remains will be a capricious hole of nothing. Woolf pressed for women to have a room of their own in their home in which they could write. She was a feminist and an indie author. She and her husband bought a printing press and printed out of their basement. Being an indie author myself I can appreciate her hard work and dedication to her craft of writing. Woolf experimented in many ways with her writing style and she constantly pushed the modernist writing style and I strive to think outside the writing rules of fiction today and expand my characters and writing to include mythology and some Norse history mixed in. Writing today is such an enormous task with boundaries that are today seldom visible and we have Woolf to thank that. I write strong female characters because of her. My women are seldom victims and powerful and in charge. Woolf may have killed herself, but her mind was always on writing. She struggled with mental issues, but her writing thrived because of it. I struggle with my writing and rewrites and revisions. I have my B.A. in English and have learned the art of good writing from numerous professors, but Woolf influenced me more than anyone else. My name is Debbie Aruta, I live in Warner Robins and I write like Woolf!
