Hello... I am a writer...

It has been almost a year since I last posted on this blog. I have started several posts, but for some reason or other, I never actually got around to posting them. I miss the blog, though, so it is time for me to get back in the writing saddle.

I am going to be making a few changes to the format of this blog, however. I am writing again, and so I will be blogging about writing. I will also be looking back at my life and some of the things that I have learned, and I will be sharing some of these things as well.

Anyway, on with the show, so to speak.

There are two times of the year that I feel a stronger need or desire to write, and those two times would be the spring and the fall. I don't know why, and I have never really tried to figure it out. It just happens this way, and I accept that. I have been chomping at the proverbial bit for the last few weeks, and I have actually started writing something. I will tell you more about that later.

There are a few things that come to my mind when I start writing, but there are many things that don't. Let me share some of the don'ts with you.

First, I don't sit down and plan or plot out my story. I'm what you call an edge of the seater, or seat of my pantser type writer. In other words, I write as I go. That doesn't mean that I don't have an idea as to where I am going with a story, it just means that I don't sit down and outline it or plan it to the nth degree. I let it come out at its own pace and in its own time. This keeps the story fresh and alive for me. I have attempted to plan out my writing in the past, and I found that once I plotted out the details, etc, the spark was gone because the story had been told. This leads me to the next don't.

I don't talk too much about the story I am writing. Every story has a spark that keeps it going as it is being written. It is what drives me to write the story, it's like a need for the story to be told. If I tell the story verbally before I write it down, the spark is gone and the story is out there so it no longer needs to be told.

I don't edit as I go, and I don't go back and edit earlier stuff. Editing to soon can ruin a story, and if you are not careful it can take over and become the focus. That is, you can end up spending more time trying to get the story perfect than getting the story out. This doesn't mean that I don't make minor changes, or fix problems that I notice while I am writing. What it means is that when I sit down to write... I write. There will be time to make changes later, but if I don't finish the story, there will be nothing worth editing.

You may have heard others say that stories have a life of their own, and to a point this is true, however, they only come to life through the will of the writer. Whether or not you feel that the story drives you, or the other way around, it is you, the writer, that is bringing the story from its pre-existent state into a realm of being... a world where it can be experienced by others... our world. This is creation in its truest sense of the word, and that is no mean feat.