Why I Talk About Writing, Now

I used to be one of those writers who never talked about writing. Writing, as any writer knows, is a solitary pursuit. There isn't anyone there but you and your characters, and it's your responsibility to channel their thoughts and actions onto the page, to give them depth, to create conflict, to decide their fate. Okay, maybe you have a dog or a cat or both who join in this endeavor with you. But really, how useful are they when you're trying to figure out a character's motivation? The truth is, no one can help you with that.

I started writing poetry when I was 12. The poems were horrible and weak, what you might expect from a 12 year old. I'm still not a great poet. I honed my writing skills by writing what they now call "fan fiction." I had a couple of friends who, along with myself, were Duran Duran fans. I would write us into stories with them, complete with romantic entanglements and children. *Blush* I always had an audience. But, I also always had someone saying, "Why does she get Nick? I want Nick." Rewrite. I suppose that was good practice for revising later, but for the wrong reason.

I wrote my first short story in 7th grade. It was named after a little known B-side Duran Duran song called "Secret Oktober." It was a fantasy piece wherein a photographer accidentally crosses over to another world via a wormhole near Stonehenge. He meets a beautiful woman who helps him to the magical waterfall that will transport him back to his world, all the while pursued by an evil sorceress. I always loved that story, probably because it was my first. I decorated the cover with symbols from the "Seven and the Ragged Tiger" album, vinyl album (that thing they used to put music on, went around on a turntable under a needle, Google it).

I loved that story for another reason. My teacher that year had fallen ill and had to have surgery. Our substitute, whose name I can't remember, sadly, told me, "This is really very good." It was the first time anyone told me they liked what I'd written, other than my constantly warring friends over who was hotter, Nick, Simon, or John. (It was John, I mean Simon) Yet, I started becoming a little more protective over my writing.

I wrote for the school newspaper, the yearbook, and I won an award for copywriting from the yearbook publisher that netted me an all expense paid trip to New York City and seminars at Columbia University. I read voraciously ("The Outsiders" by S.E. Hinton, 53 times - not kidding), Judy Blume, Laura Ingalls Wilder, the Sweet Valley High series, Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, Danielle Steele, Stephen King, Dean Koontz, Alexander Lloyd, and one and on and on, and I listened to music, dissected lyrics, I journaled, I made up two hour videos for songs that were four minutes in length (back story, back story!), and I wrote a lot of letters. Pages and pages and pages of letters.

Writing letters is different than sharing your creative work. For years I wrote in silence. I sent my work out, and it was rejected. I did once receive a nice personal note from a publisher in FL who said that the subject matter was "too serious," for what they were looking for, but please, submit again. I once submitted a novella to the Faulkner Wisdom competition that was so terrible, not the story, just the way it was written, that I waited quite a while before submitting again (about 8 years) just so I was sure they had forgotten my name. It was a fantasy novella called "Higher House" that also included a waterfall and a bad wizard.... hmmmm... anyway, this time I made the semi-finals.

I figured out "Higher House" was written so poorly by reading Stephen King's "On Writing." Once isn't enough to read that book.

So, this is what my writing life was like. No one read my work. I didn't talk about my work with other writers, I talked about it with non-writers. Which is a nice way of saying, my friends put up with me talking about writing. Then I blogged, and I posted a lot of posts, and a few mediocre poems, and on occasion, around NaNoWriMo I'd post a few chapters of an unfinished work, and that was all.

Then through the course of several life changing events that happened to crop up around the same time, and by and by, I decided to get my Masters in Creative Writing at Goddard College. Now, I can't shut up about writing. I post to Facebook, I tweet, I yak to my guests at work, I yak to my friends, writers or not, I yak to my coworkers, and my son. I yak all the time about writing, and I write about writing because I LOVE WRITING! Sometimes I'm specific. Sometimes I'm not. I'll tell you all about my book if you want. I'll tell you about the problems I'm encountering and how I intend on fixing them. I'll tell you about the books I've read - The Book of Disquiet by Fernando Pessoa, read it! I'll tell you about the stack of books I'm waiting to read and the books I want that I haven't gotten, because I LOVE BOOKS AND I LOVE WRITING!

So, why shouldn't I talk about it? Am I going to tell you about the new book I'm writing? Probably not because it's still percolating. The screenplays I'm working on? Maybe, they're a little more developed. The problems with my short story that I can't seem to figure out? Uhhhh...

Being in the Goddard environment, among my tribe, has unleashed a beast. It's my love and my passion. I may not be specific, but I will talk about writing, until I can't talk anymore.