Here’s the video:
Or you can view here on YouTube
It got me thinking that perhaps that’s how non-writers must look at writers.
People who don’t spend their days writing fiction often ask me how I can create a story out of nothing. How I can take a blank document and come up with a 100,000-word story that makes sense and is engaging for readers (or so I hope). My answer is usually a quick comment about there being little else I’d rather spend my time doing. Which of course tells them nothing about the process of writing or how I come up with ideas, but there’s only so much you can get into standing in your aunt’s kitchen on Christmas Eve, balancing a glass and a paper plate filled with three crackers and some funky cheese spread you’re not sure you want to finish.
A longer response might include references to the vast amount of story ideas and “what if” scenarios running through my head, and that if I didn’t feel like I had an outlet for some of those, I might drive myself insane.
It might also include mention of my nutty color-coded index cards and post-it note system, but that just makes me look crazy organized to non-writers (and many writers).
Another, simpler answer might be that the desire to make up stories, to play in worlds of my own imagination is something I was born with. A part of me that made me different from the other kids in school who preferred sitting on the swings at recess rather than climbing to the top of the swing set and making up their own elaborate fictional words where ordinary playground equipment turned into dinosaurs that could be controlled as they roamed in search of defectors of the forest lands.
Yeah, I was that kid on the playground.
My imagination may have made me a bit different from the other kids, but I’m okay with that. In fact, I’m more than okay with that. I celebrate it every time I sit down at my computer to work on another story.
What do you celebrate about yourself?
4 comments:
I am useless visually. There is no way I could even think about attempting anything with push pins or pencils or paints. YET - when I say I'm a writer - everyone seems to think they could do it. As though writing is somehow easier than drawing. I get the same questions as you - how do you do it, where do your ideas come from. The truth - I have no idea!! I just HAVE to write, just as artists have to draw I suppose. I'm disorganized and haphazard in my approach because that's my choice - it keeps me interested. And I hope keeps me interesting.
Gorgeous post. Loved it.
These days I celebrate my backbone, that inner strength and courage that I've somehow managed to locate after having lost it for a while. I'm glad to have it back.
Barbara: That's a great way to say it. I just HAVE to write, and when too many days go by without working on my current story, I get grumpy. That makes sense about keeping interested. We definitely have to be interested in our work or no one else will.
Thanks, Poppy. Congratulations on finding your inner strength again!! Definitely something to celebrate.
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