Newcomers

"And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men;
knowing that of the Lord ye shall receive the reward of the inheritance; for ye
serve the Lord Christ." Colossians 3:23-24
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I have to admit, watching new writers makes me smile. They are just like I was about eight or nine years ago when I began to take this journey seriously; alive with creativity bubbling over their cup. Oozing with frothiness, layers of imagination whipped up for the course.

Some newcomers I sit in awe of as they have a natural ability to putting pen to paper and creating a dashing piece of art, not just words in a novel. The most fun part of being a new writer is learning. Learning new words, new techniques, grabbing ideas, tapping at the keyboard into the wee hours of the night, and being one with a new character. But the most fulfilling, is completion, I have to say.

Although when you complete your novel, you’re sitting there scratching your head wondering what to do next. We can’t go back and do revisions, it is too fresh in our minds, we won’t see anything wrong at least until a week later. So what is a writer to do?

Start a new story, new style, learn new words, different techniques. There’s a world of knowledge to be gleaned from the writing pool. As I sit in the stages of revising my nearly sixty thousand word novel, which will more than likely be more after revision, I think of where all this writing began.

Like many before me, writing was and is a part of  every day living, always has been and always will be. It began at a young age when I first held a pencil, albeit a fat one, in my tiny hand and began doodling. Ahh, fresh untouched paper, like a newly fallen snow with not one footprint, a firm wooden pencil clutched in my hand like the baby-blankie I gripped in the other hand; scribbling thoughts that surfaced, images, words, the love of pencil and paper began. Those were the good old days.

As I grew, the words took on new meaning, they shaped either a poem or a story and all throughout school, before I ever typed on a computer and had the luxury of internet access, I was born to write. I didn’t stumble upon the written word and think, “Hey, this is cool.” No, I read, read and read some more. Wrote, wrote and continued studying the craft of writing, all throughout my childhood and early adult years.

After my hand developed callus's from writing, my hands ached from the old style typewriter, then out of nowhere a computer fell into my lap and changed my world forever. That was almost nine years ago, and I still persist in writing, whether pen or keyboard, I still write.

The best advice I can give newcomers to the field, is persist. Don’t write for a year or two and give up, that does not make you a writer, nor just because you pen words on occasion, does it make you a writer. A writer exemplifies, PERSISTENCE! We’re a tough breed and I’ve learned that the writing community is more than a community of artists, it is a home away from home.

Welcome to the writing world F2k alumni! You completed lesson six, in the shroud of NANO, and now move on, to PERSISTENCE!

Pen and Paper

I was going to write my blog for today but you know, when you have a man and a son all vying for the computer at the same time, the writer in the house has a sudden inspiration, you kind of get sidetracked, give up the computer and move into a room with a pencil and paper.

We don’t push and shove one another off the computer; we try and show mere respect for one another. But by the time I’m ‘respected’ I’ve lost the inspiration that I initially had.

In this day and age with the computers at the hubbub of the writing world, it seems that the pen and paper has lost its luster. Snail mail is a term for your submissions to be sent via mail! Can you imagine, even the post office is considered obsolete these days. You do need to send mail don’t you?

I think of the men/women who penned lengthy novels all on paper. The determination and perseverance they must have had. No internal editor; no worrying if they spelled right; they just wrote! They never had a spell checker, they had editor’s. The days of pen and paper are gone, drifting off in some billowy cloud of smoke where I can’t seem to find it through the mire.

With my pen and paper, I can find a quiet spot, either inside or out, and write my to my hearts content. Sure my hand gets blisters, they also feel arthritic, but I persevere and move on like the writers of the past. I never did like losing sight of all that history has given to us. Now I need to regroup, take it all in and soar with my pen and paper.

Uh oh...I feel that inspiration churning. I better get outside under my shade tree and relish the morning sounds. With pen and paper in hand, I’m bound to get some writing done. No one will want to vie for THAT time. No one likes it under the tree but me and my critter friends scurrying about.

Remember, the pen and paper can be your best friends when you have a computer crash, a loss of Internet service, no connection to the outside world. You carry your notebook with you and when someone asks, “Hey, where you going?” You tell them, “I’m going to sit under the shade tree.” They’ll say, “Oh.” and think b-o-r-i-n-g!

But to you, it will be your meditative place to do what you love best and that my friends, is to WRITE!