Writers Write

Writing is such a big deal and I feel, everyday, as if I am falling flat on my face. Despite not having to work, I still feel like I don't have enough time to do all the things that I should be doing to be a successful writer. I don't read like I should, I watch more tv than anybody I know personally. Though I would like to write television shows, I hated living in California. So right now, the best I can hope for when it comes to television writing is a bunch of people who want so badly to write, direct and produce a television show that they are willing to do it for no pay with their own money. It is an expensive and time consuming endeavor. I would do it in a heartbeat.

The problem, mainly, is that I don't know which direction I want to go in. Writing articles is the way most writers go because it's instant gratification... well, instant as in you get paid per article, you don't necessarily have to have an agent, you can track down the work yourself, etc. Writing books requires an enormous investment of time, and may or may not be successful. It is harder to find an agent, a market, etc. Yet while finding a direction is a problem, my second problem is wanting to see the way RightNow. It is disconcerting to be in a place where the possible results of my work aren't even conceivable. I do not know where I am going. I have no idea what my goal is. When I worked at the milk and cookie shop, I knew that I wanted to manage it, so all of my thoughts, work, everything went to making that goal a reality. What is my new forward momentum now? What is my new direction?

I tell people I want to be a writer. They say, what do you write. I don't know where to begin. I dabble in short stories (I've been writing short stories since I was 13. Before that I wrote poetry.) and have a wonderful opportunity to work on article writing, but I let my writing muscles atrophy because I let myself believe what countless people told me growing up. Don't be a writer, be a teacher. I tried that route, but was not satisfied in it, although I love to teach and my ultimate goal involves teaching and writing. No, what was not satisfying was that I felt I should stifle my writing urges because I knew, otherwise, they would take over. It is not a pretty thing to give in to the voices in your head. I told my husband once that I would have stories going on in there all the time, characters talking, actions being acted out, for good or evil. I worked hard to stop it and one day the stories stopped. I regret that now.

I don't know how to turn it back on, to reach into the recesses for the people who lived there, whose lives were entertaining, where things happened so quickly I couldn't write it down. It was an ongoing story line. My dreams are even wimping out on me, not providing the fodder for writing they once did. As I look back through old notebooks of old stories, I cringe, but I long for the time when I wrote what I saw, good or bad, and was able to craft them into the stories that made my family believe in me even when there was no other evidence to support that belief.

So I will follow the mantra that many writers follow: Writers write. There is nothing else to do. There is no other course. And with the writing must come the patience to let myself develop from this ugly writing duckling into a beautiful author swan.