Why I Write: Part I

For the last few months, nearly a year in fact, I've been struggling like I never have before with my writing.  The months spent buried in my homework made sense.  I had to prioritize, and with three jobs and full time academics, my writing had to take a back seat.  However, I've had two months of "freedom" so to speak, and I have slowly come the realization that I am not making the progress I should be.  I've started three stories, finished none, and am currently staring at my open document in a desperate need to come up with a paltry 1,292 words to make my evening goal.  With my current struggles, I've had to open up a great many doors in my dark, twisted mind, and it hasn't been a comforting find.  This leads me to today: to the need to realign with why I write.  This is part one, and I've decided I'll just have to keep coming back until I can get myself back on track.

I remember the exact reason why I wrote my first story.  It was because I didn't like the way a series I had read ended, so I wrote similar characters, but of my own creation, and ended it the way I thought it should.  Oddly enough, that story has morphed over the years to deviate from my original intention, but that was truly what moved me out of the realm of a few short stories with more beginnings than endings, and into the world of a writer.  I was eleven.  Now, nearly twenty years later, I have a library full of stories - characters of my imagination inspired by a variety of reasons who insisted on having their stories told.  In a way, I echoed the words of Toni Morrison and started as a writer because I wanted to read the tales of my own characters.

For so long, writer and creations were separate.  In a way, my characters were like the monster and I was Dr. Frankenstein (no - it's pronounced Igor...but I digress).  But that all changed last September when I lost one of my dearest friends.  Suddenly, my outlets became personal.  I was no longer Frankenstein, but instead Dr. Jekyll and my Mr. Hydes have been less than cooperative.  I had to deal with decades of repressed emotions through the only outlet I had available - writing.  Creating Summer's Boys was painful, but beautiful - and taught me more about myself than I had known.  However, it's the middle of July now, and I find that I haven't moved on like I should have.  I still struggle to keep the bleeding of creator and creation separate.  Additional personal loss hasn't helped matters either.  I woke up, quite literally in the middle of night recently and realized that it didn't matter what happened to me personally with those I've loved, I owed it to my current character to finish her story.  She was not a part of me.  I was a part of her.  So here I sit, working up the long uphill battle towards finding that balance again.  I can only hope that my writing will benefit, but I know I have a long way yet to go.

In the end, I hope that anyone who might read this will understand the feeling - that maybe you might share a touch of my suffering - and possibly, we might start that slow slog up the steep slope together.  Until we meet again...

Write On
L.E.

Halfway there = Time for a detour

I was all prepared this year to actually suffer through a Camp NaNoWriMo. I had a great idea, even if it was just in its infancy.  I thought I had set my standards sufficiently low enough: just get to 10,000 words and call it good - just in time to finish college finals.  No one said it was a good idea, but it was mine, and I'll be the first to admit it failed.  I managed a little of 2000 words and then got lost.

I've discussed before how I feel that the obsession with "writing every day" is the best philosophy.  Trust me, I completely understand how the stress of life can eat at you from just about every direction.  However, I will say that the concept of editing a crappy page is easier than a blank one works wonders on research papers...

Anyway, I digress.  The fact of the matter is here it is May.  Finals are over.  Camp NaNoWriMo is over.  I didn't succeed, and somewhere in-between trying to start a new idea that I love and standing (or sitting) where I am now, I got lost on a detour of unfinished stories.

I've never been able to determine why some ideas stick with me like a nagging toothache - to where I can't put them aside until they are finished.  Then there are those that woke me in the middle of the night, forced me to pour out over 5000 words in a single sitting, and then sat in a corner waiting...and waiting.  With an entire summer break ahead of me, I had a plan, I was prepared to plot my way through the more completed ideas running amok in my head (even my characters are on summer break, apparently), but if there is one thing I've learned about writing, it is simply to never plan anything.  My characters all have minds of their own, and the sooner I realize that, the happier we will all be.  One can hope.  Let's hope this plan works out better than the last.

Anyone out there with a similar tale?  How many unfinished stories do you have haunting the cobwebs of your mind?  I think I'll count and get back to you.

-L.E.