Writing and the Creative Life: Of Beginnings and Endings
Brothers and sisters, we all know the act of writing a story is hard work. Coming up with good ideas. Figuring out characters, Solving plot issues. Confronting scenes that don’t work. Dialogue that won’t come. Losing sight of where we’re going. Sometimes writing can be the very last thing we want to do.
I am here to say… I feel your pain.
I have struggled with my writing the last few days. And then yesterday afternoon as I was pacing around my office deep in thought, I had a feeling…
That you and I could both use a boost.
And so I am here to provide us with a few reminders about beginnings and endings.
Remember when you first came up with the story idea you’re currently writing?
How great that felt?
Let’s take a deep breath and relive the joy of that initial discovery, those first few days and weeks of knowing we’d hit on a spectacular idea for a story. That’s right… take a deep, deep breath right now…
Now here’s another reminder. Remember the last time you finished writing a story? Made it through all the rewrites, that final edit. You clicked on “Print,” then listened as your printer churned out your pages.
Try to remember picking up those pages. Feel their heft, their warmth fresh from the printer. Then lift those pages and breathe in that wonderful smell of completeness… and let yourself feel that incomparable sense of creative joy! You made it to the end!
My friends, a writer’s journey is an arduous one. But armed with a great concept and filled with the knowledge that we have done this before and we can do it again, let us go forth… and get ourselves all the way from FADE IN to FADE OUT!
So here we go: Another blast of virtual creative juju for the entire GITS community. Whoosh!
Go forth… and write your ass off!
[Originally posted March 22, 2014]
