Jotting it down
I think I like to write because it lets me be someone else. I can be magical, beautiful, funny, witty, mean, loud, strange - anything I want and the worst that can happen is my character is flat or unlikeable. Much easier than real life.
In real life there is this pressure. PRESSURE. Will you like me? Will you think I'm vain, rude, pushy, screechy, annoying? Will you think I'm wonderful, funny, insightful, kind? I know which list I prefer.
Within the crafted word is an infinite number of possibilities. Just the other day I thought of a really funny parody I'd like to write based on a very famous book and movie. It doesn't have vampires in it, either. I talked it over with Eric, sketched out an outline, laughed at my own pithy ways, and left the little seedling to germinate in my file.
That same file also contains the seed of a story I've been working on and working over for almost six years now. Six years! To be sure I haven't spent a lot of those six years on those words. I get frustrated by the dead ends, afraid of the ordinary, and stuck on the moments in between. After almost six years of writing, I have no definite beginning, middle or end. Although the beginning is coming along. (Sounds a lot like life, dontcha think?)
That same file holds some children's stories that delight me, some random phrases and sentences I'd like to use, and a Viking girl of about 15. I'm not sure where any of those stories will go, but for now the like the dark and dusty places of my imaginary world.
I set a goal to finish a manuscript by July 31, 2011. I've been thinking about that goal, twisting and turning it in the corners of my mind, chewing on the possibilities. I want to give it a try, we'll see where the writing road takes me (it very well could be nowhere).
Only time (and words) will tell.
In real life there is this pressure. PRESSURE. Will you like me? Will you think I'm vain, rude, pushy, screechy, annoying? Will you think I'm wonderful, funny, insightful, kind? I know which list I prefer.
Within the crafted word is an infinite number of possibilities. Just the other day I thought of a really funny parody I'd like to write based on a very famous book and movie. It doesn't have vampires in it, either. I talked it over with Eric, sketched out an outline, laughed at my own pithy ways, and left the little seedling to germinate in my file.
That same file also contains the seed of a story I've been working on and working over for almost six years now. Six years! To be sure I haven't spent a lot of those six years on those words. I get frustrated by the dead ends, afraid of the ordinary, and stuck on the moments in between. After almost six years of writing, I have no definite beginning, middle or end. Although the beginning is coming along. (Sounds a lot like life, dontcha think?)
That same file holds some children's stories that delight me, some random phrases and sentences I'd like to use, and a Viking girl of about 15. I'm not sure where any of those stories will go, but for now the like the dark and dusty places of my imaginary world.
I set a goal to finish a manuscript by July 31, 2011. I've been thinking about that goal, twisting and turning it in the corners of my mind, chewing on the possibilities. I want to give it a try, we'll see where the writing road takes me (it very well could be nowhere).
Only time (and words) will tell.
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