Writing - Writers Forum

Schumi · 09-09-2005, 05:37 AM

I started my novel 2 or so months ago, and so far, it has been one of the most enjoyable things I have ever done in my life. Because it's my first try at writing properly, I don't doubt many people would look at the work I have done, and think it is written badly, and it is just plain uninteresting. But I don't care. What I'm writing may be really rubbish, but it doesn't matter, because I'm getting the enjoyment out of it. I can see the characters; I can picture every scene in my head. And I swear that on one particular chapter, it wasn't me writing the dialogue. It was the characters themselves doing it.

I've learnt one, very important thing since I started. Writing is freedom. It allows you to create whatever you want. There are no limitations. And because I'm not yet thinking about trying to get anything I have done published, it makes it a lot of fun. There's no pressure.

Quite simply, I love writing.

Stewart · 09-09-2005, 06:35 AM

I hope you like editing as much.

Perad · 09-09-2005, 06:37 AM

thats a nice little story, i'm the same, i write for the enjoyment of writing, but i also do it to improve and hopefully one day publish something that i do

selina kyle · 09-09-2005, 06:58 AM

That's really great - there's nothing more liberating than self expression. And by taking the view that you have, you've taken a lot of the pressure out of it like you said.

Good luck and I hope you continue to enjoy the process!

mammamaia · 09-09-2005, 07:35 AM

shumi... you've discovered the main reason most who write love doing it... here's a piece i wrote way back when, that deals with just that... you might find it a fun read:

WORLDS WITHOUT END*

Do you know who’s as close to being God as anyone can get? A writer! It’s easy. We all do it. Just by putting words together, I can...

...turn tragedy into a happy ending;

...leave a slum behind to live at Versailles or in a villa on any Greek island;

...do away with my tormentors with no qualms of conscience;

...resurrect my beloved dead or any long-ago season of my life;

...travel in time without leaving my comfy bed, with just a pad in my lap & pens enough for the journey;

...cure the common cold, cancer, AIDS, broken hearts and my own old age;

...replace warring peoples’ terror with peace;

...bring a smile to a starving child’s lips and food to his poor, bloated belly;

...change history or affect the future (figuratively, and possibly even literally, as some before me have surely done).

When I write something that has not yet been, it then exists. I say “this is” and no one can say it is not- not even another writer, as we inhabit parallel universes of our own individual designs. None can cancel any other’s, each plane is inviolate. Who else can so effortlessly protect one’s turf, one’s world? No wonder this kind of creating is habit-forming. Once begun, once indulged in, how can I ever kick it? Why on earth would I want to live only in life as it is- and forgo ever again making of it whatever I wish?

Blessing, curse, addiction, affliction- it’s all of those and yet, despite whatever down side, to be a writer is to achieve immortality on a level no scientist or inventor ever will attain. We leave behind not objects, theories, concepts in the untouchable abstract- but all of ourselves, in our own unmistakable words. To be freely shared. To live again and again in all who take them in. Each being who reads a book, sees a film, sings a song we’ve created, absorbs a part of us and passes it on and on for ever and ever... without end or “amen”.

( to be continued...)

[*Dedicated to my longtime idol and consummate wordmaster, William Safire]

Schumi · 09-09-2005, 12:37 PM

mammamaia, that was a really good post. Thank you very much

mammamaia · 09-09-2005, 12:39 PM

glad you liked it... enjoy all your worlds!

hugs, m

CreativeThinker · 09-09-2005, 05:26 PM

Quote:

Editing is an entirely different matter. That has to be done with publishing in mind.

Definitely. I always end a period of writing with the dread of editing on my mind. That doesn't stop me though!

Stewart · 09-09-2005, 05:31 PM

I prefer to think of it as having completion in mind. Even if you are just "writing for yourself" you should still care enough to go back over what you've written to cut out the crap, the spelling errors, the grammatical mistakes, word choices, etc.