But we write on and on anyway…
Still working on some flash fiction to submit to the competition that ends ina few weeks. I have one strong candidate, but will have to polish off or write another two.
I sat down Friday night with what I thought was a great first line and promptly muffed it. The line was this:
The graveyard was deathly quiet (as it should be) when we entered close to dawn.
I went for a new technique that I had wanted to explore: first person, cutting the more floral aspects of writing, sticking to bullet sentences without any chaff.
THAT experiment is over. God. I wrote 250 words before I realized that I had taken a perfectly good idea and converted gold to shite.
While I discarded the effort (or saved it with the words “false start” in the file name), I am glad that I took a half hour to explore this style of writing. It didn’t work in this instance but, looking back a few days later, I did discover what DID work.
It’s times like these when the dark little monster on my shoulder whispers to me that I am an awful writer and I should just hang up my hat and call it quits. But I listen to the quieter voice which tells me that I may not be the best writer (and I won’t be receiving any awards for my writing), but I have something of value to convey. Of value to whom? Well, that’s an entirely different philosophical question….
But value doesn’t change the need for continued practice. You can’t be a world-class swimmer if you don’t practice, why should writing be any different? And so… I write and don’t let the poor results slow me down.
The important thing is to keep writing… Move the hand…. Let the larger mind take over.
The main problem comes when I try to control the writing instead of letting the writing control itself — the honesty is absent when I try to edit and write at the same time. I need to trust that energy and let the words flow like a river through a gorge.
Upcoming News:
I start a POV writing class a week from today. I am really going to throw myself completely into writing at every available moment and I think learning more about how to approach writing with different Points of View is essential to raising my writing to the next level. I’m terribly excited, and terribly apprehensive. I have been writing in a vacuum for so long that I am not sure if what I am doing has gotten better or worse. I’m not sure that I want to discover that my writing is too outre or poor to be published. Like jumping off a cliff, my adrenaline rises every time I consider the class.
I’ve also signed up for a 1-day class on structuring stories and learning more about pacing. That’s a month from now. I’m wondering how much I will garner from this class, but I suspect that I will learn something new.
These two classes will determine how much I invest in future classes from the same source. If I had the time and the money, I might apply for their master writer’s apprenticeship, but I have neither until my daughter is a wee bit older and my wife and I can work similar schedules (somebody needs to take care of Rowan in the evenings…).
My goal, between now and the time I am 50 (slightly over a decade), is to really commit myself to cultivating my writing. Maybe before I pass on I will be able to write something that makes my daughter smile, if no one else, when she reads it.
So, in spite of the flops, a writer keeps writing. And writing. And writing.
It’s not as if he has any choice in the matter, but he keeps on all the same.