Writing it down
Short snippets on life in creative writing form
Some years ago, reading what I’d written felt embarrassing.
… And don’t get me started on how I felt while hearing it read out loud. It landed on the terror-horrific land.
Today, I’ve been writing all day. Reading and rereading plenty, out loud included, and self-publishing it too.
I started my day with just a few items on the to do’s list. Then went on to a short creative text. Next, scribbling a page in my journal. Later, I’ve started a blog post, just followed by an edit effort on one short story. Also, not forgetting the social media mini texts, that need to accompany the days effort.
Is this long arduous work? Not quite. I mean, it can be hard if I don’t have the ideas I need for each text, or if my mind is muddled by some internal chatty voice, with some mundane issue that always seems to be my constant companion, or if by some biological factor, I’m a bit off my game.
But will I get to the end of the day with a sense that I’ve done my writer’s job?
There are days and then there are days. In some, I get pretty self-satisfied, assuming I can just shelve-and-forget the nagging thought that ‘it will all be worth something, someday’. Or that it doesn’t matter what I write, just that I keep writing.
Other days, the thought of stacking these childish writerly building blocks, without any predictable outcome except the void of nothingness, also known as failure to write something really outstanding, just throws me into an infancy tantrum mode. So much so, that I find myself complaining, raving and then thinking to turn everything into the oblivion abyss, and tossing the ‘all writing-life project’ aside, while becoming a deep well of self-pity and doubt.
Oh, but on the other days!!! There are days, like today, that I pick a project back up, after a considerable amount of downtime on that particular project, and see that my mind has been working wonders for years. Even if I had doubted it all the way.
Today I’ve picked up a previously shelved writing project and decided to move forward with it. I calibrated my self-talk, and decided to go ahead, and just polish the whole thing so that, eventually, I may put it out there. Probably, self-publish. I have decided to spend double the time I had put into it, until now, and try to make the best I can. It’s not that leaving it forgotten in some virtual drawer, will bring me something good, is it? So, I might as well go work on the thing again.
I thought I was starting over, from almost zero. That I had made a minimal amount of efforts on the short-stories I already had, and that it still needed, basically everything, until I could see it as a workable writing project.
What I hadn’t realised was that I had abandoned the project while I was pretty much ahead.
And why had I abandoned it?, you may ask. I frankly do not know.
Today, I thought I was doing a start over, collecting all the short stories I needed, from the different, and pretty much jumbled folders. I thought I would have to wallow in those, and choose from the stupid dispersed material that I had, organize it, giving them a proper order, finding a theme or at least some defining thread throughout it all, putting everything in some king of reasonable presentation that I could be using to do another final text edit (I do a lot of those… final edit, of the final edit, of the absolutely final edit version of a story…), tweak them as needed and just see if it was worthy to put more resources into it. Even contemplated to write a few more or rewrite some.
I went for the first step, just to realise I had done all that work already.
There is a theme, a specific genre really. The short-stories are organised. Numbered, even! There are recent and unpublished short-stories, on par with the initial written ones. And I recall each one of those.
I thought it was way behind, just to find it way ahead. I was elated to the moon and back.
Sometimes, I think I kid myself into inertia because I have to. Because it all feels too much, too big, too exposed. But maybe it’s time to get out of the ‘I didn’t write anything today’ public transport, because I’m feeling crowded and just had some sick motion urges about it, and accept that I’ve been riding this car for a long time.
So, I’ve been writing all day. Big words, small words, lists, editing phrases, inventing ideas to write about, and so much more. Is it all good? Heck, no! How special can a list be?!
Still, I intent to keep it that way: writing whatever away. While I proceed to open one short-story’s file, and read it, with a new set of good intentions and some prayers to the Universe… because I need the extra boost.
Some years ago, reading what I’d written felt embarrassing. Now, it just feels work as usual. Because it doesn’t matter what my ego thinks…
All that matters is writing it down.
This is a Writing Snippet, a short creative essay part of a series composed of a varied assortment of mini stories about life and creative writing. Enjoy and try it for yourself! Write just a few creative words on writing, and let me know your writerly results in the comments.