We were lucky to catch up with Alexis L Carroll recently and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Alexis L, thanks for joining us today. How did you learn to do what you do? Knowing what you know now, what could you have done to speed up your learning process? What skills do you think were most essential? What obstacles stood in the way of learning more?
Being a hairstylist and an author, I’ve found that there are two common denominators to honing your skills. You need to have passion for the craft and you need to practice often to keep your creative eyes open. Sure, I could easily find more similarities in both, but those are the two that stand out the brightest to me.
The passion for storytelling is what has fueled through industry rejections, depression, and self-doubt. I love telling a story so much, that getting those words written down is enough reward in itself. Of course, I want others to read and enjoy my work, as well, and but it is truly the love of words that holds my flame strong and steady. Same goes for hairstyling. I am a vivids enthusiast. I love seeing the world of color on a head of flowing hair.
In order to be considered ‘good’ at either of those two crafts, I’ve had to spend many years studying hair design, working with mentors and along side peers, taking extra classes long after school. The hair world is always evolving and thus a hairstylist must as well. Books! The market for books and the standard of how we publish always evolving. Working with editors and critique partners has helped me hone my own style, kept me in the loop with industry.
My biggest take away has always been to look, listen, and learn from your peers.
Alexis L, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
I have always been a storyteller since I can remember. The eldest of all my siblings and cousins, I was often the one to babysit and put little ones to bed. We had a fun game where I would start a story and have the littles fill in the blanks, sort of like a MadLib game, but at bedtime. It was always fairytales of princesses and dragons that weren’t mean, wicked witches that lived in stinky places, and finding the inner strength to do what’s right. I never stopped writing, even after we all grew up and stopped with bedtime tales. The wonderful world of the internet brought me places like Neopets and Gaiaonline, where I found roleplaying. It wasn’t until I became an adult and found a shiny new passion that I stepped away from writing; that passion was hair design.
My family moved to Hawaii and I tagged along, finding a hair school there that really let me explore my creative side with hair color. They taught me the fundamentals of cutting, styling, and coloring. However, it was my peers who drove me into creative challenges. Instagram and Pinterest were fairly new and exciting then, my classmates would show me fun hair colors and ask for similar looks. We had fashion shows on every First Friday of the month and I made a name for myself amongst photographers who would invite me to do hair and makeup on projects. It was in hair school that I also met my husband.
When we started our family, we decided to move away from Hawaii and settled in Oregon. The first year was really rough for us, especially for myself. I was a new mom, had only two friends in the area, and no transportation. It was easy to slip into a depression in my solitude. While unpacking, I found a notebook with bits and pieces of scenes I had wrote over the years with these two characters. Flipping through it, something inside me pieced those together and I found the call to put them all together in an epic tale of self-reliance in the midst of loneliness and monsters. It took me about five months to hit ‘the end’. Then I started researching how to get published.
When I found the writing community on Twitter, with so many creative writers like myself at the same stage or farther ahead or just starting out, I got a sense that I had found my people. I found peers who did not gatekeep, but uplifted and offered help. Discovered indie publishers and self published authors who quickly became some of my favorite storytellers. And while in the querying trenches, as we call it, I found submission calls for short stories. Easily excitable and eager to get my words out to readers, I started sending short stories out to these publishers for anthologies. And a lot of them were accepted!
Amongst the writing community, there was one person who stood out and actually lived close by. We both love Lord of The Rings, Batman, and writing dark fantasy. At this time, I was active again in the salon and invited this person to discuss writing and nerd things and get pampered. Once we clicked, we became inseparable. Amanda Stockton, who you interviewed recently, is a talented artist, writer, and a great friend. The salon I worked at was closed down for the pandemic, so we spent a lot of 2020 in a bubble together, plotting how we could co-author something, anything together.
It took us three years to get that dream made into a reality, between the pandemic, personal things, and learning how to self publish. Together we powered through and ‘Things Magical Under The Moon: A Grim Anthology’ was released unto the world on August 31st, 2023. Under a blue moon. Our dark fantasy, with horror themes, features six fairy tale retellings. Three heart-racing, gut-punching, gritty tales from Amanda Stockton. And three whimsical, vibrant, dark cautionary tales from myself. The response from our community was outstanding. We sold out on signed copies online and went to many markets around Oregon. It felt great and still does, to have my words out there being read by lovers of fantasy.
What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?
One of the ways that I support my peers in both salon settings and the book industry, is positive, uplifting engagement. If I see their post on social media, I do what I call the Full Three; Like
Comment
Repost
It takes roughly a few seconds of your time to do the Full Three. Why all three? The way social media platforms are built now, it’s all about what your friends are ‘liking’, it is what is ‘popular’ and talked about, not who you follow. I will scroll and see what so-and-so liked/commented on more than I’ll see posts by people I’ve actually chosen to follow. If you think about support that way, then you can see how engaging is key. It’s not enough to just like a post anymore.
A lot of us cannot afford to support each other the way we wish we could. Buying products, visiting the salon every month, filling your shelves with books. But we can give encouragement and support in the form of engagement. We all human, we all peers. Uplift and support.
We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?
One thing I’ve struggled with in both careers, in the past, was asking for help or opinions on projects. Outside of hair school, I didn’t have teachers I could ask to check my work. I didn’t have student-friends to practice a new updo I saw online on. I did seek out a mentor, who ended up being too busy for me. I felt very alone behind my styling chair and built up anxiety that I wasn’t good enough. In the writing world, before I found the writing community on twitter, I was told to never share my work because of theft so I didn’t utilize beta-readers or editors. I cringe thinking back to all the horrible query letters and first chapters I sent to publishers and agents.
Entering short stories for anthologies really helped me see not everyone was out to steal my work. Working with editors and publishers on those stories showed me how great having professional help could be. I opened up more and joined writing groups, trading writings for critique to help each other put our best work out. I’ve learned so much from others when I got brave enough to ask for help.
In hair design, I started asking more questions when I saw things other stylists did that I liked. “How did you do that?” “What tools do you like?” “What was that color formula you used? Why?” Honestly, I think the online hair community on Instagram really changed during the pandemic. Formulas were no longer safe-guarded, they were shared in captions. We got more in-depth styling tutorials from behind the chair. Honest reviews on tools, rather than sales ads. That openness online helped me ask questions of peers, in person, behind the salon chair next to me.
In turn, I share my experiences and knowledge with others. I have a writing group that meets on Twitch weekly, an active writers discord where we share critiques and submission calls. And I joined a salon that offers continued education for all of the stylists, where we all compliment each others work, and we discuss techniques.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://linktr.ee/authoralexislcarroll
- Instagram: @alexisxstetic
- Twitter: @alexisxstetic
Image Credits
PurpleStarr Photography (for solo of me in the red jacket), Jason Black Photography (the photo of Amanda and I at comic con, the photo of me doing hair in the blue dress)