Writing is a bit like falling in love
Oct. 26th, 2012 06:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
omi_ohmyWell, it is for me, anyway.
When I started writing, it was just something that I had to do. The words needed to get out, and I wasn't sure if I'd have any more once they were written down. It has been an immense surprise to find that I did have more to say, more to write.
At the beginning, I wrote and wrote. I think I was writing about 10,000 words a week, and I would sit at my kitchen table every day and they would pour out of me. I had a little routine and it worked perfectly. I wrote about it here. It was like a series of perfect dates, and staring into the distance and trembling at the sound of that voice.
And then my RL turned upside-down for about three months, and when I came out the other side of a pretty hellish time my rhythms were all broken. Since then I've found a way back to writing - fests, prompts and deadlines have helped - but I don't have the same lovely routine.
I keep seeking it, and I think I will find it again, but I have to remind myself that the important thing is that I am still writing, and that 'easy' isn't necessarily 'good'. I think some of my best writing so far has come out of a real creative struggle - and one for time and energy too. It shouldn't always be easy. If it were, I'd never grow as a writer (or as a person) and I don't think my words would count for as much.
That first rush of words was wonderful to experience, but this bit now - where I have to think things through, where I have to work at it - is, I think, better. It might not be fun in the same way, but it is more real. This isn't romantic candlelit meals and gentle but passionate kisses on the doorstop (or hot animal sex either, for that matter): this is when having someone there makes a bad day good, or is just the hand to hold when you get bad news. This is when there is someone to put an arm around you to share the bitter-sweet moments of life.
Happy and straight-forward is attractive, but complicated and a bit broken is a bit more real. And being happy with the latter is made much easier with someone there: friends, family, a bunch of obsessed strangers online. The thing I've learnt this year is that I like to write, and that I should write, even when I don't feel like it, even when I have no ideas and the words won't come. I should still do it then, because sometimes I will find the words anyway, and the act of searching and sifting and discarding will help in more ways than one.
And sometimes, when I am tired, I will mix metaphors and speak in a confused manner and people will forgive me anyway. I hope. :)
When I started writing, it was just something that I had to do. The words needed to get out, and I wasn't sure if I'd have any more once they were written down. It has been an immense surprise to find that I did have more to say, more to write.
At the beginning, I wrote and wrote. I think I was writing about 10,000 words a week, and I would sit at my kitchen table every day and they would pour out of me. I had a little routine and it worked perfectly. I wrote about it here. It was like a series of perfect dates, and staring into the distance and trembling at the sound of that voice.
And then my RL turned upside-down for about three months, and when I came out the other side of a pretty hellish time my rhythms were all broken. Since then I've found a way back to writing - fests, prompts and deadlines have helped - but I don't have the same lovely routine.
I keep seeking it, and I think I will find it again, but I have to remind myself that the important thing is that I am still writing, and that 'easy' isn't necessarily 'good'. I think some of my best writing so far has come out of a real creative struggle - and one for time and energy too. It shouldn't always be easy. If it were, I'd never grow as a writer (or as a person) and I don't think my words would count for as much.
That first rush of words was wonderful to experience, but this bit now - where I have to think things through, where I have to work at it - is, I think, better. It might not be fun in the same way, but it is more real. This isn't romantic candlelit meals and gentle but passionate kisses on the doorstop (or hot animal sex either, for that matter): this is when having someone there makes a bad day good, or is just the hand to hold when you get bad news. This is when there is someone to put an arm around you to share the bitter-sweet moments of life.
Happy and straight-forward is attractive, but complicated and a bit broken is a bit more real. And being happy with the latter is made much easier with someone there: friends, family, a bunch of obsessed strangers online. The thing I've learnt this year is that I like to write, and that I should write, even when I don't feel like it, even when I have no ideas and the words won't come. I should still do it then, because sometimes I will find the words anyway, and the act of searching and sifting and discarding will help in more ways than one.
And sometimes, when I am tired, I will mix metaphors and speak in a confused manner and people will forgive me anyway. I hope. :)
