Writing

***This one has been sitting on my computer desktop for a week or two now, so I should probably just post it.***

I've read that writing is very easy; all you have to do is sit at the typewriter and bleed. I can't recall who said this at the moment, but I thought it was quite poignant and applicable to me. For a long time, I've wanted to be a writer, probably of fiction of the romantic variety (though I have no experience in such topics). Regardless of that, I think it’s going on ten years now that I've wanted to be a writer, which means I've been writing since I was 11 or 12. That’s quite some time, I believe, and I would like to believe that my craft has been developed quite significantly since then, though I know I have a long way to go before I’m even close to ready for publishing or even submitting any of my work. I have a few problems that I should probably consider solving before I can even begin to think about writing something book worthy.

1.                    Being able to tell people that I enjoy writing. For the time being, I've most likely only told a handful of people (read: less than 10) that I like writing. I don’t even know if my parents remember that I enjoy writing, as I think I've only brought it up in passing and it was years ago. It’s difficult to write when people around you don’t know that you enjoy writing.

2.                    Being able to share my writing with others. Other than my blog, which only a couple of people know I have anyway, I've only ever let one person read any of my fiction writings. One. That’s it. And it was eight or nine years ago when I shared it. I was writing a lot of fluffy sweet things too, so it wasn’t anything deep or inappropriate or what have you.

3.                    Telling people the types of things I like to write about. Most people know (or can guess) that I’m kind of a romantic and believe pretty fully in love. What people may not know (or guess) is that I like to write about these things. The situations and characters shall remain a mystery, for now, but I don’t want to lose friends because I like to write about love, especially since I've never had a love of my own.

4.                    Finishing something I've started. My computer is a veritable graveyard of unfinished stories. I had 110 on an old computer, nearly 70 on my current one, and none of them have even a sense of an ending. Oh sure, I've written a couple of things in the 100+ page range, which I know is a good start, but I never finish them. I get uninspired or come up with something else or think it’s quite cheesy and all kinds of nonsense. Excuses aside, I just stop writing. I've posted two chapters on a fiction website and didn’t get to anything else from that story. Sorry to those who are waiting on it; I’ll be finishing it never.

5.                    Being inspired to write. As I mentioned above, I pretty exclusively stay in the romance category (do what you will with that information) and I would like to branch out to write something with more substance. Other than my blog posts, which are just stream of consciousness anyway, I've never written anything solely dramatic or horrific (not that I would like to anyway… gross) or thrilling or science fiction-y. While I do enjoy the fluffy romantic bits I occasionally come up with, I wish it wasn’t my only way of writing.

I’m sure there’s more to add to the list, but I think, in general, this is pretty comprehensive right now, encompassing everything I need and want to change. And that quote I referenced at the beginning? I bleed a lot into these blog posts, but I wonder if bleeding is a transferrable skill. I would like to put my heart into my other writings as well.

Until then, I’ll just keep dreaming about happy endings.