We all talk on the blog about the pain and suffering of writing and of how we must knock our head against metaphorical writers blocks or how we are well versed at procrastination and indecision. When do we talk about the joy of it?
Joy I hear you cry! – Can I not hear your suffering and torment, how can I talk about joy when it comes to this mutual addiction of words on paper. Put quite simply – because it is true!
Yes writing is hard and you can go from feeling you have reached a pinnacle of desperate craftiness to sizzling mediocrity – depending on how it is going. But there are days when you get lost in the story and when the story gets lost in you. When your fingers can’t keep up with the voices and you are left holding your breath and hanging on for dear life as your darlings sweep you away.
I feel like this now and no, none of it is perfect. It will need tortuous re-writes and endless re-structuring. A certain comma, needs moving or a word gets repeated or it is slipping into a turn of phrase that seem like weeds in the well-balanced prose. Or I keep saying that a character turned towards something or looked at something, some basic mistakes.
I urge you to just get that wip of yours out now and let it go, relax, let the words they speak in your head hit the paper and whilst you’re doing that just imagine not being able to do it. Imagine they have taken the gift of being god (for that is what you are in whichever world your building, the situations you craft) away from you.. That you could never do it again. Pretty scary stuff – right.
There are days when it feels like the mountain is too tall and you left a lonesome spirit at the bottom gazing into the distance, feeling small. Then there are the days where you stand at the top of the world you have built and feel, dare I say, a trifle pleased with yourself at what you have created.
It is a gift to create. Enjoy it.
Of course tomorrow is a different story… One with a much less joyous ending. So whatever you are doing, reading your emails, spending time on social media – just stop – that page aint gonna fill itself and if you feel a trite pissed off at having to do it. Just imagine that you could never do it again, and then smile and get on with it….
Comments, as always, welcome.
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- Write for the Joy of It (onewaytowonder.wordpress.com)
- An Open Letter: Lessons Learned (writingbypaul.wordpress.com)
- Bittersweet Better (kmscheuer.wordpress.com)
