I've been writing since I was about 8 years old. The stories were shitty, nonsensical drabbles about a cat named Astro and his talking baseball cards. Thinking back on it, each one of these pieces was filled with horrible grammatical errors and atrocities, but it was clearly the beginning of a passion. What 8-year-old would sit at a computer and write a story for three hours? (Yeah, I was a HORRIBLY slow typer as a kid, so sue me).
My interest in the craft was peaked in 5th grade, where we had to write a humorous short story. I think I might've been the only one in the class that was excited about it. As soon as the teacher told us to start our drafts, my pencil and I went town. That's where Astro made his comeback. I gave him a skateboard and had him doing all sorts of shenanigans as well as running into professional athletes who thought that he was insane. It was a piece that I had way too much fun with because I remember cracking myself up and getting strange looks from my classmates.
At that age, I remember writing almost every day and being able to come up with an idea, put it on paper and then finish it in 2-3 days time. As I got older and the nature of my writing changed, that became harder and harder. Some of it was due to writer's block, most of it was just me saying: "I don't want to write."
Now, you're probably wondering: 'What does any of this have to do with fear and inspiration?'
Well, I wrote that preface because I'm having a problem.
I haven't written anything in over a year.
So that got me thinking about my writing process and the routine I go through when I'm prepping to write. Now, I'm not one of those writer's that agonizes over ideas, I have plenty of those. For me, it's the actual structuring and getting the idea in a notebook that make me cry and send me into fits of rage, so I came up with a list of personal "rules" (Re: OCD comforts) for writing:
1. Always outline or web your idea, even if it's a little sloppy. You've got to have at least *some* ideas about the direction of your story.
2. Drafts *must* be done in a notebook before they're typed
3. College Ruled paper only
4. Preferred writing utensil is a MECHANICAL PENCIL (.07 lead) ONLY
5. Never throw drafts away---they're good learning tools
Oh, and a little "unwritten" personal opinion: One-finger typists are geniuses; if you can't handle that, screw off :) This usually gets my mind in the zone. If that doesn't work, wordplay is fantastic for generating ideas. Wordplay is simply where you write words on a piece of paper. They can be whatever kind of words you want and the exercise can make complete sense or it can be totally nonsensical. I can't tell you how many good stories I've written using this method.
Just as I was thinking about what helps me get in the zone, I also thought about *why* I wasn't writing and that was because of fear. Back when I wrote more frequently, I would write an amazing short story/poem/novella and then after I finished, I wouldn't write for months or even years at a time. That's because I would fall in love with my previous story and say: 'God, that was so good! I can't match the greatness of that. Yeah, I've got ideas, but that story is just so perfect, why ruin a good thing by writing another story?' or 'What if I completely blow the next story and everybody says how awful I am?' Kind of cynical, I know, but it's true.
On the flipside of that, there's what inspires me to write. Nature, pictures, quotes, toys--yes, I just said toys, movies, my mood, people watching....the list goes on and on. Point is, if everyday life is stressing you out, grab a piece of paper every once in a while and try writing something. It doesn't have to be a novel, just let your mind go crazy. It's an awesome de-stresser.
On that note I leave you with a poem I wrote last fall. Enjoy!! I'm off to write about a blue sock monkey with a pom pom hat.
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Closure
I remember
that house.
It’s dark
interior, the peeling paint and fractured walls
Then there
was that horrible, acrid smell of smoke and whiskey…
I can still
hear his voice, eerily raspy and seething with hatred
As he held
me by the collar and swore at me, his spit plastering my cheeks
Through my
tears, I’d ask him what I did wrong
But he never
answered with words. Only hard slaps and kicks to the ribs.
My childhood
was far from joyful.
Memories that
should’ve been filled with the sounds of laughter, excitement and happiness
Have been
replaced with the sounds of shattering bottles, broken bones, bloody noses
And the
cracking of the foundation every time he threw a tantrum.
A 6-year-old
should never have to experience that.
How I
managed to survive is beyond me.
He passed
away just last week. I got the call on Tuesday.
And now,
here I stand.
I’m not sure
what compelled me to come back,
There was no
“really good” reason to.
Maybe it’s
because I felt bad for him
They say he
died all alone
I don’t care
how big of a jerk he was back then
He didn’t
deserve to die that way, no one does.
Maybe I came
back because I’m all he had left.
Everyone
that should’ve been close to him is gone now----
His family,
his friends, his wife…
Everyone
except me.
Or maybe I
just wanted to see the house.
I left when
I was 18. I’m 24 now, so it’s been 6 years.
I wanted to
see if he had ever cleaned it up or did anything different with it
It doesn’t
look like he did
It’s still
the same shabby hole that I grew up in.
So I don’t
know if I’ll ever figure out why I came back…
Maybe it was
out of guilt, or maybe I felt it was something I had to do
Or maybe I
just wanted proof, some kind of closure
That the
worst part of my life had officially come to an end.
