Writing and Rambling
I’ve been writing a lot recently … not sure why, or for what purpose, but I certainly am pounding out the verbiage. I’m a bit self-conscious about it all, since I see so many awful books at work, why am I adding more words to the potential bonfire?
I’m enjoying writing though. I’m primarily writing biographical stuff and observations, rather than fiction - I’ve tried writing fiction in the past and always found myself staring blankly at the screen. This seems to be working much better for me and the words are coming much quicker.
Everything tends to be quite short, sketches of the people and things I see around me. Honestly, it’s possible that what I’m writing is a blog on paper … short pieces that talk about what’s going on around me. But I’m not sure whether that’s accurate, since it all has a different feel to the kind of thing I write here.
Yes, I’m rambling I know. I’ve decided to just let myself ramble in all of my writing with the goal of separating the process of creation from the process of editing. I feel that the mechanical process of writing, of exercising the writing part of my brain, is valuable in itself. Sure, I may be writing complete nonsense, but I’m writing and I’ve had trouble doing that for a while.
The one thing I do plan to avoid for as long as possible is any attempt at writing poetry. I wrote some poetry when I was in high school, and it was absolutely execrable. I’m not going there again any time soon.
You say you’re not writing fiction but it sounds like you’re doing far more than scribbling.
In describing the weather in a novel an author can’t just make up what rain is. He has to describe what would actually be going on outside the window during a storm, even if he puts it into his own words. If a character is happy or miserable, an author would need to draw on his own feelings to describe his character’s emotions accurately.
The fact that you’re writing so often turns you into a writer and my advice to you would be to file away everything you do. Open a folder for “feelings” or “weather” or “landscapes” and keep your writing in the different sections. Therefore, when you come to write a fiction scene that involves the description of a busy street, you have an accurate one on hand to copy across. I put regular writing prompts on my blog if you want to check them out.
Writing every day puts you miles ahead of a lot of the wannabes out there. So keep going and see what happens. Good Luck
Elaine Saunders
Author - Fiction Writing Exercises
Books For Writers Blog
It’s A Book About….blog
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Thank you, that’s very perceptive.
Both the practical advice of having a swipe file and the more general encouragement are very valuable.
Thanks for stopping by.