It is entirely too late for me to be up seeing as I will more than likely need to dig my car out of snow in the morning, but I'm here. Okay, so that's a bit of an exaggeration on my part snow-wise, but I digress before I start. Anyhow, I have taken to writing whenever I feel the urge and I must admit, it is quite nice allowing myself a little time here and there to write. No, it's not very good. Yes, it does relate to my stories that I have been working on. However, I will continue to write, good or bad. The more I write, the more in tune I will become with what I want to say and how I want to say it. This is key. If you never practice or even play, how do you expect to make the sounds you anticipate making?
One thing I know I have been slowly learning and accepting is that writing can also be done sans pen and paper and yes, even sans computer. When I am in the right mindset, and I actively think about my project, I find the words come much easier once I do pick up a pen and paper. In fact that is how one of my short stories was penned. I wrote a poem once, randomly one day. It was a fleeting thought that I felt too good to pass up, so I wrote it out as I heard it in my head. It wasn't the best, but the concept was there. When I put my pen down, I had every intention of weaving it into a short story. But a year went by. I thought of it often, and towards the end of that year, a few weeks before I picked up and wrote it out, I thought about it constantly, if not every spare moment I could give it. Yet still, I refrained from writing a word. Then one night, I wrote out the entire thing, beginning to end.
This was probably the first time I ever truly felt like a writer. When I was finished, I knew it was good. I attempted my edits but found nothing to edit. Never fear, I thought to myself, I have a Writer's Workshop in class so I can just get feedback on how best to edit it there. The next week, I read it in class, and I received my feedback. Unfortunately, there were no comments on how to make it better.
Understand that I know that no writing is perfect and all could be edited, and indeed, months later I found one or two punctuation errors and reworded a few things. But the edits I felt were in vain. It was to be the way it was written and no way else.
Now most writing is not even close to this. But for me, it was a necessary milestone. I came to understand that there are good writers, not just good editors. I came to understand that not all writing is physical and even more, not all of it is mental. Much of it is subconscious and emotional. Much of it is raw and needs direction, but in the way that seems fit for the idea, not even necessarily the writer.
Writing is its own being, its own entity. It must be nurtured, cultivated, loved, hated, betrayed, grieved, dismissed, cut off, welcomed home, pruned, weeded, amputated (if necessary), fed, watered, put to bed, and taken into bed. If you cannot do this, you cannot write the way your writing needs.
But mostly, writing needs you to be there for it, through high tides, drought, famine, and feast. Writing cannot write itself. So if you leave it be, no one will ever find it, discover it, and love it or hate it as much as you.
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