Writing Is Hard
Fun Fact no. 1: I am a writer.
No, this doesn't necessarily mean that I spend all my days in a tortured, Edgar Allan Poe type mindset, locked away for weeks, pounding out words on the page (though I have had days where all I did was this). This simple fact just means that I like to think of myself as the literary type. Things aren't usually this simple, though.
First, let me get one thing straight. I'm not here to complain about the struggles of writing or the self pity that some writers have. There are legitimate things that make writing a hard thing to do. So often, I'll catch myself thinking about being bogged down in my writing that I can forget why I do it. When this happens, I have to reorient myself, in a sense. It's comparable to when you spend a while in the woods and have to stop to take in your surroundings and figure out where you are.
One of the troubles that I seem to face consistently is thinking or reading about writing and not actually doing the writing. I can spend hours reading articles on what not to do in writing or the best way to start a novel. Granted, these articles are useful and I have implemented a lot of what they had to say into my writing techniques, but how can I consider myself a writer if I don't write?
Fun Fact no. 2: I write considerably less than I should.
This leads me to my next point. For all that I say about myself being a writer, I sure don't write as much or as often as I should or would like to. I think about writing nearly all the time and I'm consistently working on my novel in my head, but I would do better to write these things down as they came to me. So should I take time out of every day to write the 2,000 words that I've set down as a daily goal for myself? Absolutely. Will I? Well, I'll try to. I know that there will be busy days when I won't have time to write or won't feel like it. But there should be no excuses. The only way to write is to write, dang it, and I will not stop writing until I've said everything I want to say.
Even though there are numerable uncertainties when it comes to writing, they can't take away the joys of it (which would make for a good separate post). There have been great things come out of working on this new novel of mine.
-I've been forced to learn to type faster to keep up with my thoughts as they come to me
-I'm able to put my thoughts and theories about life in the minds of my characters to detach myself from any direct judgement
-Because most of my characters have some aspect of my personality worked into theirs, I'm able to sift through and observe my insecurities from a bystander's point of view
Fun Fact no. 3: I'm actually a really confident person because of my writing, but nothing scares me more than writing.
I'm reminded of something that Ernest Hemingway once said: "There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed". Some days, I can't write because I feel like I've bled myself dry. My writing has made me become aware of things about myself that I might not have recognized before. I can work through my frustrations on paper. I can hash out my conflicts through my characters. So even though some days, it feels like everything I write is wrong, I still continue to write. I'll continue writing until there's nothing left to say and I've bled out every last drop onto paper.
No, this doesn't necessarily mean that I spend all my days in a tortured, Edgar Allan Poe type mindset, locked away for weeks, pounding out words on the page (though I have had days where all I did was this). This simple fact just means that I like to think of myself as the literary type. Things aren't usually this simple, though.
First, let me get one thing straight. I'm not here to complain about the struggles of writing or the self pity that some writers have. There are legitimate things that make writing a hard thing to do. So often, I'll catch myself thinking about being bogged down in my writing that I can forget why I do it. When this happens, I have to reorient myself, in a sense. It's comparable to when you spend a while in the woods and have to stop to take in your surroundings and figure out where you are.
One of the troubles that I seem to face consistently is thinking or reading about writing and not actually doing the writing. I can spend hours reading articles on what not to do in writing or the best way to start a novel. Granted, these articles are useful and I have implemented a lot of what they had to say into my writing techniques, but how can I consider myself a writer if I don't write?
Fun Fact no. 2: I write considerably less than I should.
This leads me to my next point. For all that I say about myself being a writer, I sure don't write as much or as often as I should or would like to. I think about writing nearly all the time and I'm consistently working on my novel in my head, but I would do better to write these things down as they came to me. So should I take time out of every day to write the 2,000 words that I've set down as a daily goal for myself? Absolutely. Will I? Well, I'll try to. I know that there will be busy days when I won't have time to write or won't feel like it. But there should be no excuses. The only way to write is to write, dang it, and I will not stop writing until I've said everything I want to say.
Even though there are numerable uncertainties when it comes to writing, they can't take away the joys of it (which would make for a good separate post). There have been great things come out of working on this new novel of mine.
-I've been forced to learn to type faster to keep up with my thoughts as they come to me
-I'm able to put my thoughts and theories about life in the minds of my characters to detach myself from any direct judgement
-Because most of my characters have some aspect of my personality worked into theirs, I'm able to sift through and observe my insecurities from a bystander's point of view
Fun Fact no. 3: I'm actually a really confident person because of my writing, but nothing scares me more than writing.
I'm reminded of something that Ernest Hemingway once said: "There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed". Some days, I can't write because I feel like I've bled myself dry. My writing has made me become aware of things about myself that I might not have recognized before. I can work through my frustrations on paper. I can hash out my conflicts through my characters. So even though some days, it feels like everything I write is wrong, I still continue to write. I'll continue writing until there's nothing left to say and I've bled out every last drop onto paper.
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