Learning to Write

I was trying to write in the evening the other day. It was getting sort of late, the kids were in bed, I had the last shot of tequila from a bottle we’d had for a while and I was sipping it slowly letting its warmth spread across the inside of my chest. But I couldn’t write at night. I thought I could. I hammered out two paragraphs, relatively long, but they were a jumble of non-ideas and half thoughts and I deleted it out of hand. (Not that my writing in the morning is any different…) I have to write in the morning.

There is something about this time, early, before the kids are awake or I have seen and talked with people. Before I gotten ready for work, or eaten, or made my lunch. Before the day begins, really, before anything—before most things—I write. There is coffee and that is it. It seems that most authors write in the mornings, before the day has had a chance to contaminate their minds and now I can see why. To be productive takes a commitment and focus on the process and discipline of the craft of writing, over these past two odd weeks I’ve begun to realize the immense amounts of time and energy it would take to write for a living. But I’ve also begun to realize how much of this process of writing simply becomes routine. The very act of writing in the mornings, getting the first paragraph into words, leads to another and another and another.

So far my it seems my writing centers on writing. I’m focusing on where I’m coming from and where I’m at. The notion, from Hemingway, of starting with the truest sentence available at the time is an extremely influencing practice. And when I start from somewhere true my writing usually makes its way through my sub conscious and things come to light that I didn’t expect. Most notably I wrote recently about my darker side, the part of my mind that puts life into conflict. This dark side of who I am isn’t about succumbing to depression and angst its more about allowing it to influence what I’m writing, I have a problem creating conflict in my writing without it. Without conflict there is really no point in telling a story.

Conflict is what drives characters to develop, grow, and draw readers into their lives. In acting they call it suspension of disbelief. The ability to draw the audience in and make them forget that what they are watching is fiction, just actors and actresses on the stage playing out a story. Similarly, true characters faced with true conflict draw readers into a story.

It has been a while since I’ve tried writing short stories or works of fiction. I have lost the practice of it. But I’m beginning to get back into the routine of simply writing. 20 minutes at the computer typing away, isn’t that much for me now, soon it will be thirty and presently I’ll be able to hammer away for an hour. My goal, write continuously for an hour.

In the face of change I am looking at all the jobs I can see myself doing: teaching, construction management, design, to name a few. But what really stands out to me is my recurring desire to write. Whether its how I make my living or not, I think I will label myself a writer, in my mind at least, and someday I hope that as a writer I can make a living.