Just write, already
“I should write a book.” No, no. “Someday I’ll write a book.” Nope. That’s no good either. “Some books you read are just crap. I could do better than that.” Hmm. Now I’m getting somewhere.
I was in the bank the other day. (Never a fun place because I only go when I need something from them so it feels like begging. Maybe someday when I’m filthy rich, going into the bank will be fun. I should ask somebody who’s filthy rich…yeah and maybe they’ll adopt me too.) Anyway, I was talking to a nice lady at the bank and when I told her what I did for a living, she said she should write a book. The last one she’d read was terrible and she knew she could do better. Then she shrugged it off, saying it would have to wait until she retired.
Why?
I mean I wasn’t intrusive enough to ask her why she thought she couldn’t write part time, sit down at the keyboard an hour or so each week and give her inner muse a stretch. Instead, I gave her the contact information for the really good writers’ group in the area. Chickening out? Maybe. But it got me thinking—why don’t you just write something already? Not her personally but you, yes you, you lover of romance with that adorable twinkle in your eye, reading Dawn’s guest-blog posting right now
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When you played in the water as a kid (if you can’t swim, please stick with me for a moment anyway) you didn’t think about Olympic glory, or about sitting up on a lifeguard tower all bronzed and sleek in the summer sun. No, you splashed around because it was just plain fun. The feel of the sand between your toes, the scent of coconut sun block, or running in the shallow end of the pool and playing ball. You did it because it made you feel good, and you just really, really wanted to get wet.
Writing is exactly the same. If you want to write, write. Please. It’s as simple as getting your toes wet. When you made that first, tentative tummy tuck and lifted your feet off the bottom, you didn’t expect to immediately rip through the water like a dolphin. To write, you don’t need a plan, an outline, a list of motifs and your character doesn’t even have to have a last name. When the urge to write something creative hits, it’s because there’s something inside you that needs letting out. Some childhood experience that cries out for attention. An incident that wants your introspection. Relationships that need you to turn them over and see what’s crawling around underneath.
There’s lots of things I’ve written, little stories or novellas that will never see the light of day because I wrote them because I needed to write them. They wouldn’t make any sense to anybody else, most of them are drivel but each one served something inside me and I felt really, really good after I’d purged. Like any skill, the more you do it the better you get. Suck at grammar? Take a half-day course sometime. Want the affirmation of somebody else reading your work? Post it on-line. Want to get paid for your work? Join a local writers’ group (your local chapter of Romance Writers of America is a terrific place to start), go to the meetings and soak up the advice, baby.
Somebody once said the worst thing you ever wrote is better than anything you never did. So glue your cute tushie to that chair, get your fingers on the keyboard and write, already!
If you’d like, you can write to me. I love to chat. I’m Gwen@GwenCampbell.net
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