Every time I sit down to write, my head is filled with a hundred things. My freelance articles are written from a reporter’s point of view. This means I have a subject and so a plan. Direction is clear; I just have to follow through on the information I collected during the interview and hope it all comes together.
But those times when I want to work on a piece of fiction I started weeks, months or even years ago; well that’s when I get flustered. Writing is a journey from my head to my pen (or computer key pad.) And never having been schooled in writing, I’m flying alone. But I think I’m not unlike the majority of writers.
I envy a writer who has been educated to write. I admire teachers and professors’ who teach writing. (Some of whom I consider good friends.) I’m sorry I didn’t take my college days seriously enough to pursue a career in writing but unfortunately my reasons for going to college had nothing to do with getting a degree.
I did go back to college for a few years much later in my life. Although I didn’t study creative writing, I did have to write in a journal after every class and be graded on the content and manner of the journal. Getting A+’s was amazing but being told by the professor that I had a gift changed my life. For the first time I saw myself as who I really was. And if I wanted to write, no one was stopping me but me.
It is with trust in myself that I keep writing even when my head is filled with so many stories I can’t keep up with. It is the same trust that brings it all together in the end, the perfect story because I wrote it.
Lifetime Writing 