Personal Prose Post
“Nice to meet you. What do you do?”
“I’m a writer. What about you?”
“I’m a _________. Writer, eh? I’ve always wanted to write a book. Can I tell you my idea?”
This is the way the conversation goes three out of four times when I meet someone new. It seems that everybody wants to write a book. Whether they read books or not. Whether they have ever written a word beyond signing their names. The uninitiated consider writing to be so easy that they could write a best-seller if they only had the time.
I want to sigh, and then scream, “It’s not as easy as you think!” But I listen politely and encourage them to sit themselves down in a chair and write what’s in their minds. We both know it’s not likely they will do it, but for a time they amuse themselves that they really will. Someday.
This blog is for those of you who really do want to write. I’m officially encouraging you.
Writing isn’t publishing. Both are hard, but writing is under your control. Publishing, largely, isn’t. You have to write something before you can even think about getting it published, and most people only dream about writing. So we’re starting with writing … writing for yourself. Or maybe for your family or friends. But not necessarily that best-seller. Not at first.
This blog is to help you sit yourselves down in a chair and write something. Anything, really. But staring at a blank sheet of paper or a blank computer screen can be incredibly daunting, and you can feel like giving up before you even start. Writing is like using a muscle – the more you exercise it, the stronger it gets. Our focus is going to be on writing for yourselves, rather than for publication, because that’s where the pleasure is. Few things compare to the joy of getting a paragraph just right, or jotting down a childhood memory and sharing it with your family, or describing in your own words the glint of a snowy mountain under a full moon.
As you’ll know when you read my web site, I believe everyone is a natural storyteller, and it’s one of the most fulfilling things in life for people to write down their own stories. So each week I’ll blog about something that, hopefully, will spark your imagination to sit down and write!
I invite you to write comments, and even post your own writings. Hopefully, we’ll have a dialogue about writing for ourselves. Maybe, just maybe, some of it will be published, eventually. But even if it isn’t, you’ll still be a writer … because you’ll be writing!
Posted in Writing | 1 Comment » | December 2nd, 2009
I journal about once a month, usually just a few pages at a time. I have yet to face a blank screen and attempted to write anything else. It is a daunting prospect. When I am particularly joyous, such as when I am spending intimate time with my wife, songs and lymericks come to me. While they please me, I never write them down. They disappear like Champaigne bubbles. I’ll come back to your column as I feel intrigued and challenged by the idea of my doing deliberate writing of memories, anecdotes or even fiction.
Thank you for your blog. I look forward to your next entries.