What a writing weekend. It’s been so amazing. School is finished (doing celebration dance as I type) and I was able to really focus on my short story writing. It didn’t come easily after so many weeks of not writing. I struggled with my words and sentence structures. My characters have such a great story to tell, but it was locked in my brain unwilling to come out as eloquently as they desired. (Any hear the quote about writing being a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia? I’m starting to understand that!) After many typed and deleted sentences, I finally decided that the best thing to do is write it down. Whatever it was, get it onto the proverbial paper and call it a rough rough draft. So that’s what I did. And (another victory dance) I have finished my first rough draft of my novella.
What a great personal accomplish. What a great experience. It has taught me a great lesson about the craft. It’s an easy one. As Aj say, “There ain’t nothing to it but to do it.” While I was wrapping up school, I made a ton of excuses as to why I couldn’t write. I needed to work on school (valid as it was), I only had a few minutes I should use to relax. As the weeks past by, my hesitation to write was less based in excuses and more founded in fears. What if I forgot my characters? What if they wouldn’t tell their story any longer? I had spent so much time getting to know them in the first place, and the less time that I spent with them, the harder it was to come back to them.
But when I finally did sit down to write again, I found the story was still there. There perfect words were not. They are still trapped inside a vault in the back of the my mind waiting to be rediscovered, but my characters could still tell their story, and quite well, I just let them.
Like any craft, writing takes continual practice. Without it, my writing muscle in the brain atrophied and my vocabulary was elementary, my descriptions weak and cliche. I didn’t like much of what I wrote. But I still like the story. I found it in my slab of marble, my sculpture to be discovered. It has taken a rough shape with blunt tools. Now, I will let it rest as I practice the finer skills of writing to return to it later. Add the detail it deserves and polish for others to enjoy.
I can’t wait!
LoraJo Bennett 