In my last blog post I talked about what brought me to the point of deciding I want to write for a living. But that’s just the purple prelude to nothing.
Like I said, I began experimenting around with some ideas on random loose-leaf paper. Embarrassed to let anyone else know what I was doing (why?) I’d write in as small of lettering as possible while in school so that I could still plan out a story while there. Each day I’d add more and block the different days’ notes.
After a few months (and I mean a few months of almost duplicate notes to myself) I realized that planning a story is not the same as writing a story. I decided to put my pencil to paper to write the actual story.
And couldn’t get past the first page because I wanted everything to be perfect. How naive! I finally accepted overtime the skewed logic behind that idea, but for a few years it stuck with me – mind you I hadn’t yet discovered all the authors or websites that write about writing.
My love for writing grew while I struggled to write. Eventually I decided to “start over” with my whole story idea (which I finally admitted to myself was not much more than Terry Brooks fan fiction). To begin with, I shuffled my ideas around and did my best to create my own story rather than ripping off someone else’s. It worked.
I told myself that I’d have to write at least one page of writing per day (a whole lot more than I’d been averaging even though I hand wrote everything). My writing began to take off.
***
I’m heading on a roadtrip for two weeks, so I wanted to get in another post before leaving. Afterwards, the saga of me writing will continue. Next time I’m diving into where my writing began to flourish and I’ll probably cover everything up until my writing went on hiatus for two years.