Writing wins and woes

This title is not to be interpreted as “how to write wins and woes” that characters experience. I seldom will be posing as someone who could tell anyone else how to do much of anything.

I would say, however, that this post is about the wins and woes of writing. (Why I did not title it thusly, I do not know.)

Woes

I’ll share woes first, for that’s what led me here. I seldom read honest, gritty accounts of writers in hardship. Usually it’s a bit candy coated. When I eat peanut M&M’s or chocolate raisins, I savor the candy coating, but here, let’s crack the nut of it.

It sucks sometimes putting it all out there and not finding a readership. It’s much like talking to a wall (or putting in a support email/ticket). Writing exposes the soul, or at least it can, when done (perhaps) honestly. What I write, even my fiction, is with a purpose of sharing of myself and helping others through hardships (generally by escape).

It also is unpleasant to have so much to say but realize that even if I were to dictate it all (or better yet have a neural implant hoover it all up) I could not get out all the ideas I have been fostering and feeding in my head. Time is moving too quickly.

It’s just painstakingly slow.

I do not like rejection, failure, or bad reviews—and I’m long overdue for all these. More than those, I don’t like waiting. Writing seems to overflow with all these icky things all too often. Waiting for the muse. Waiting for the editor. Waiting for the cover artist. Then, even when it’s all done and out there…waiting for feedback.

Some writers claim they can ignore all this.

They claim they write because the must. They say they are compelled to get their content out, and they have no interest in anything but that. (I say they are typically not speaking the truth, for it takes tremendous effort to write and publish. I don’t believe anyone goes through the pain, effort, and expense simply as an act of exorcism.)

So I know woes, though they are few, so far. For me, like Tom Petty says, “The waiting is the hardest part.”

Wins

In a tweak on the Ghostbusters’ claim, “Writin’ makes me feel good.”

It always has. From passing notes and writing poems in grade school to writing in my journal and blog, and now writing longer public, published works—it all makes me feel good.

For me it’s not a mandate or compulsion to “get it out” but an opportunity to be with others over the span of space and time beyond my actual presence.

Whuuu?

When I write, I can assume it’s read across town or the planet, and it might be read in The Future (places I’m not at, times I’m not in). That’s a crazy sensation, one I like. (Probably one that makes me seem vain, too, but deal with it.)

I love writing fiction and poetry because I love to create. I love making things, solving problems, tweaking and improving expression. Writing is much better for me than talking, for I can get it write on paper, where who knows what’s coming out of my mouth.

So writing is winning! It’s expressive. It’s timeless. It feels good.

It’s work, trying to get a piece of ‘art’ to truly represent what I intended it to. It’s challenging when competing voices are telling me to write to market versus be true to myself. I find it more complicated yet when a character is vying for attention or I’m “writing in the dark” and discovering a story/plot as I go…but wow, what a feeling when things are revealed to me! What a super power it is to make stuff up.

Creation. I see why God likes it.