I think the biggest problem I’m having with blogging about books lately is that my brain is wanting to do some writing and I’m suppressing it. I’m still reading a lot but when I’m not I find myself playing with stories ideas, both fan fiction and original. I have a couple of unfinished Lois & Clark stories plus at least one original universe that I’ve been playing with for years. It took me a while to figure it out, but I think thinking about them is draining away the mental energy I need to write up anything about books. Except for the bare minimum, that is.
The story bug is a curious phenomenon. Until I got involved in the Lois & Clark fandom, I’d never indulged in creative writing of any kind. I call it the story bug because I still have no interest in being published. Commercially, that is. I think in our society we’ve lost the ability to use creative writing as a personal outlet, not unlike any other artistic endeavor. Why do we have to be writing with the goal of being published for it to be meaningful to us? Why can’t it be just as meaningful as the act of reading itself?
It is the reverse aspect to reading after all.
It certainly wasn’t something I learned from school, however. If anything it’s something I learned from life. And possibly from reading, itself.
A pure love of my own imagination.
Cindy, writing by hand would drive me nuts. I think dysgraphia tends to run in my family because my father has horrible handwriting and my is edging more towards his the older I get. Thank god for typing. 😀
Suisan, yeah, sketches. And vignettes. I love those. Used to drive the other Lois & Clark fans crazy because, to me, the romantic “moment” was sometimes enough.
Go ahead and write, Bev. I agree–the writing for publishing’s sake is a different motive, I think. I write conversations and character sketches a lot. They help me put stuff together almost in the same way that talking through a situation in therapy is helpful.
If it all pulls together to the point where you think it’s a publishable story, well then, that’s a whole new task with a different set of challenges. Go ahead and write now and enjoy it.
(I used to write Battlestar Galactica scripts with a friend when I was a kid. SO I get the Lois and Clark influence.)
I’m so happy for you! You should definitely run with the writing and like you I have written stuff but not to get published. I never understood journaling in school but that was because I never trusted things were private. I’m thinking it was my mom who once said, never write something down that you don’t want others to see. Course she said that when I was a teen and maybe she was busy searching my stuff for those notes we’re all prone to passing in class 😉
I find I have to write creatively – I write by hand – if I become too overwhelmed by emotions.
I also hate when my imagination becomes stagnant – this has been my main drag lately. I’m a big daydreamer but I feel to much like ‘been there, done it’ and it’s a tool I use to fall asleep. When it’s stagnant I have a harder time falling asleep and need my little pills 😉
CindyS