Friday, July 31, 2009

Bliss & The Naivety of Writing

So I find I am faced with a bit of a conundrum in regards to my writing. It seems the more knowledge I attain on the craft of writing, the less eager I am to do this professionally – at least for any kind of “living”. Unfortunately, gone are the days of naivety in my writing.

The times when I could sit down, punch out a horde of words, and think to myself: WOW! This is really good stuff here.

The times when I thought “editing” meant using spell check on my first (& only) draft.

The times when I considered what I had to say might in any way be the slightest bit unique.

HAHA. I must now laugh out loud at those ludicrous views. My overloaded brain now contains multitudes of articles screaming the how’s & what’s and the do’s & don’ts of writing. Making me understand that I am but a tiny seed in the garden of writing and leaving little doubt I may never flower into adulthood in said garden.

Reading author after author talk about how “I was born to do this and would scratch my prose on the walls of caves if I had to,” doesn’t make things any better. Sure, I LOVE the art of writing. More specifically, I should say, I love the art of storytelling, but writing is a totally different beast. I hear all these writers say things like --- "the voices are in my head all the time and HAVE to come out onto paper". Am I an awful writer if that’s NOT the case?

Because it's just not like that with me most of the time.

My characters come out when I want to play, but not often on their own. Sometimes, I even have to coax them out. But then the fun starts, and when they do talk to me and tell ME where the story should go, I really feel like a writer. Artistically, I see things and get story ideas all the time now, but I think it's because I am tuned in to that creative part of myself. A part that wasn’t visible to me before --- before I allowed this portal inside my head to open. I have always loved stories, escaping into other worlds, other lives -- but never really thought about writing them down so much. Until I started that pivitol story that has changed everything for me.

So far on my journey, I have loved every aspect of writing my stories out and it has really helped me through a very trying time in my life. I love that I can write whenever I want ... there are no deadlines and no one is paying me to finish it and move on to the next one.

On some cosmic level, I know this is a very special time for me. And I want to enjoy it. I also know that if I ever DO get published, without a doubt, things are going to change. I hope I don't ever end up hating to do this...I don't ever want writing to become my daily grind. I want it to always be my passion.

Until then, I will write on, somewhat blindly, with my trusty sidekicks drive and ambition along for the ride. Maybe, just maybe, with a little bit of luck sprinkled in, it will get me where I am headed. :)