| |
|
|
|
|
Writing >> You're Scared To Start Writing But You Want To Write Anyway |
|
2006-02-20
| Ellen Essene
|
|
We all know how to write, right? So why is it so hard? Why do we
freeze up at the thought of writing our thoughts down on paper?
I have a suspicion it started when we were all in grade school
and we were judged by our teacher, that bastion of authority who
had the power to reward our "What I Did On My Summer Vacation"
essay with a radiant smile or the reverse...the dastardly scowl.
The scowl was sure to set our fellow students to snickering and
feeling superior to us, at least until it was their turn to
stand up and read what they had written themselves. Then it
became their turn to be afraid.
A lot of us have never recovered from the assaults on our
creative writing yet many of us have harbored the desire to
write, really write for years. But we freeze up because we're
afraid of exposing our tender, creative selves again. Here is
one way you can take the first tentative step towards undoing
the fear of writing.
For years I was afraid to write openly and seriously. I was so
afraid that I believed that even if I hid my stories I could
never hide them well enough. Surely somebody would stumble upon
them and I would come home one day to find them lying out in the
open - exposed.
The writing that felt safe to me was letter writing and that's
what I did as an outlet. I wrote letters to practically every
one I knew, hundreds and hundreds of letters over the years. But
the odd thing was, I rarely if ever mailed the letters out and I
didn't know why nor did it bother me in the least that I didn't.
Years later, in college and newly married my husband started
noticing this odd little trait of mine. It made no sense to him
that I would write so many letters and not mail them.
Unbeknownst to me, he started collecting them in a folder and
months later presented the folder to me with these words, "If
you don't start mailing these letters out to the people they're
meant for -I will!" Startled by his ultimatum I exclaimed, "But
I'm not writing all these letters to other people, I'm writing
them to myself!" In that moment I realized I'd hidden my passion
to be a real writer so deeply that I was only allowing it to
surface in the form of letters. Even so, at least I was writing!
So if you want to start writing but you're afraid, try starting
out doing what I did. Sit down and compose letters about people
and things and places, factual or purely from your imagination..
Write as though you're decribing it all in a letter to your
closest friend or a relative. It's not scary in the least and
it'll ease you into writing regularly. Save each letter and file
it away in a folder. A wonderful side effect of starting out
writing this way is it gives you the best practice in developing
your "authentic voice" - something all writers strive for.
Do this long enough and before long you may find you've written
enough letters to make a novel of your own!
But here is what's so amazing. Eventually I was to learn that
there is an entire style of story/novel writing called
epistolary. This form was common in the 18th century and is
still being used by contemporary writers of today.
And Excellant epistolary novel is "The Ginger Tree" by Oswald
Wynd
|
|
| More Related Articles in Writing
|
|
|
|
ADS |
