So yesterday, while my parents came over and watched Lucy, I had my first ever Writing Day. The point was for me to spend 3 interrupted hours (10 am – 1 pm) getting into the flow of writing to enable me to actually make some headway on a short story.
It turned out that I had a phone call for a work committee I’m on from 11 to 12:15, so I didn’t get quite as much writing done as I’d hoped. But I really did get into the flow between 10 and 11, so much so that I lost track of time and only remembered about the call at 11:05.
Blogging almost always comes easily to me. Fiction, on the other hand, is difficult. I spend a lot more time thinking about the words I’m using. I struggle with descriptions of people and places — how much detail do I need and when does it become too much? And for lack of a better expression, I think I basically suck at dialogue. As a result, while my dream is to write a piece that’s of the caliber of the stories that are published in the New Yorker, what I end up writing sounds more like the excerpts in Glamour or Cosmopolitan. (Don’t get me wrong — if I could be published anywhere, much less a national magazine, I would be ecstatic. That’s just the best comparison I could think of for my issues with the tone of my writing.)
Even though it’s hard, I’m still really excited about it. I’m not exactly quitting my day job just yet, but I am going to continue setting aside chunks of time each week to write. I’m also going to read as much as I can of the type of writing I inspire to. And I still think I’d like to take a class at some point in the future. I bought a book called A Year of Writing Dangerously, and I can’t wait to see what interesting prompts and inspirations I’ll find there.
Fellow writers out there, I’d love your words of wisdom!
Loving Lucy 