A Passion for Writing
I
have to admit I have always been a writer. Well, maybe not always, but at least
from the age of thirteen on I was writing. I loved to read and be read to from
birth, though, which is what any writer will probably tell you. There is a
visceral connection between reading and writing.
The
first thing I can really remember writing, outside of school projects and
things, was a play. Why a play? To this day I still do not understand it. I had
never even read or seen a play before outside of the bits and pieces of
Shakespeare that I had been exposed to in elementary literature books. The play
was also strange in that it was inspired by an old television show, made way
before my time. Called Hogan’s Heroes, the show was a humorous account of a
German prisoner of war camp during World War Two. Yes, that idea seems like a
great one for a young writer to start out on, right? But, believe it or not,
that is just what I did.
I
remember scribbling furiously in my little journal, carefully numbering the
pages as I wrote and going back to add in a note or two in the margins. You
see, this was in the Stone Age- before every child or teen had a computer of
their own. I spent a great deal of time reading and rereading every bit of
text, carefully looking up how to spell the big words, and using my very best
handwriting. To even write something legible was quite an accomplishment for me
any day, so you can imagine how much hard labor went into creating an entire
play that was clear and spelled mostly correctly.
At
the end of the play I sketched the faces of the men I had just brought to life.
Serious and sad, laughing and happy, messily dying or running or fighting: to
say I lacked artistic talent is an understatement, but still I sketched. There was just something about it that
I could not let go.
When
the tome was complete I felt satisfied. I had accomplished something of great
value, if only for myself. You see, I had no idea there was an entire group of
writers out there doing the same thing I did. In fact it was not until I was in
my twenties that I discovered what I had written was called fan fiction. By
then I had written many more stories, though none were plays. That particular
type of writing seemed too stifling to me. There was not enough room to add in
all the little details that I loved to read about.
How,
for example, did you give insight into a character’s mindset in a play? How did
you describe the setting or the clothes they wore? How did you convey body
movements and facial expressions? All those great things that mean as much, or
more than, words.
Thus
I left plays behind me and moved into short stories. These stories were
typically packed full of action with minimal dialogue. Usually they were
focused on one character as he made his way through the world. In fact, it was
more a character study work then a short story, but that was okay with me too.
As I said, I was always writing for myself fist. No one else read my work, nor
was it edited by anyone. It was just me, my characters, and my passion.
I
think that is the most important part of being a writer. The passion. You have
to be driven from within to really want to write day in and day out. There has
to be something inside you that prompts you to write down
your feels, to express your thoughts, to create all these mythical people that
live, forever, within your own mind.
For
some writers, and even for myself at times, it is not so much a passion to
write as it is a necessity. I feel like I would go insane or explode if I did
not write. Most often that is due to the fact that writers have trouble
expressing their thoughts, feelings and emotions verbally. I know I certainly
do. There is just something terrifying about speaking words that can never be
taken back or edited out. Something so final: like turning in your first rough
draft without ever being able to look it over for spelling mistakes or grammar
blunders.
Maybe
it is more about control then I realize. Because you know that writers are
control freaks. Though our lives and our offices and even our brains may be
messy, our books are not. They are carefully crafted worlds where everything
works just the way we want it to. Even when bad things happen we know the
extent and length of the damage is fully under our control.
The
thing that I have realized through my years of writing, though, is that the
best stories come when we give up control. When we set loose the reigns of our
imagination and let the characters write their own story. That is when the most
magnificent, unplanned, and unregulated accidents happen. Those parts of us
that are hidden deep inside come forth and show themselves in the words upon
the page, revealing things we had never consciously thought about or considered
writing down.
It
is those moments that make writing a true passion. Because with a true passion
it is all about letting go of control and allowing the unconscious free reign.
It is about expressing feelings and thoughts that typically get squashed and
compressed due to the boundaries of morals or society’s regulations.
Thoseinstances where a writer truly becomes free to write makes for the best
and most compelling writing of all.
I
am not saying that all writing is some kind of mediation or spiritual
experience. Quite frankly a lot of it is just typing down words to get them out
of your head. But sometimes, every once in a while, writing becomes more than
that. And that is when writing really feels like it is worth your while.
Having
a passion for writing is not the mark of a writer. The mark of a writer is the inability
to stop writing. Passion is a fleeting thing that comes and goes on its own
whims, but the underlying fire that it kindles in the heart of a writer is what
is important. It is what lasts through the log droughts between passionate
explosions of productivity.
Being
a writer means lots of hard work and endless hours typing when you would rather
be doing almost anything else. It means collating your thoughts and
imaginations into a form that others can understand, regardless of the fact
that it loses something in the translation. Being a writer is like being a
painter or a photographer. There is always something just off. Just off camera
or just out of reach of your talents that you are striving for. That is why
most writers never feel satisfied with their work. Because, to them, it is
never really complete. There is only so much that words alone can capture, but
it is the way you wield those words that matter.
Bring
passion back into your writing. Set your mind free and allow your characters to
write through you. Even if it is just a narrator without a name, still there is
someone inside of you that longs to get out. That longs to express himself or
herself. It is up to you to set them free and experience the passion and
vitality that your mind holds within its recesses. All those thoughts and
feelings that you never allowed yourself to dwell on can now be expressing
though the eyes of another. That is what passionate writing is all about.
Author
Bio:
Jason
Miner, an expert freelance writer, loves writing articles on different
categories. He is approaching different bloggers to recognize each other's
efforts through “www.blogcarnival.com”.
No comments:
Post a Comment