On Writing Again

Lately, I've been forcing myself to write. Creative Write. Fiction Write. Not Copy Write. The latter I spend all day at work doing; I've given up doing it at home.

So. I've been writing. Something I haven't really done since college. However, there's been a story inside of me that I've been carrying around since high school, but every time I tried to tell it the story came out flat and wholly uninteresting.

When I verbally retell titillating tidbits from high school I'm interesting, funny, and my high school days seem far more scandalous than they felt at the time. (Maybe that's because I'm an adult now and I get what others were playing at.)

When I tried to put it down on paper it was too me centric. I was struggling with just getting out the emotional stuff. What I wrote were long, purging narratives that lacked the most important things to any well written story - a conflict and a resolution. In short, it lacked plot.

UNTIL NOW!

So the other day, I sat down in front of my computer and started with a line that described how I felt at the end of that particular day. (It had been a long, long, stressful day.) Then, and I'm not sure how, I tapped into my sixteen-year-old-self and started writing something I'm excited about. The things I've been missing just hit me. I have a plot, a conflict, teenage angst, (you have to have teenage angst). There's a pinch of mystery, a dash of Shakespeare and a dollop of verbotene liebe (forbidden love).

Now I fully realize that lots of stories deal with teenage angst and forbidden love set against a mystery. Some of them are even good! Most aren't. I have no idea where in the spectrum my story will land. None whatsoever. However, I'm excited about it. Like really, truly excited about it.

I have so much excitement about it that I've let no less than eight people read it. I had people read it who come from all circles of life. One's a lawyer. A few are artists. One works at a Publishing company. (She's a good friend, back off!) Two of them are my parents. All of them said the same thing: "It's good. I'm hooked. I want more." A few, who write themselves, offered some unasked for but helpful questions about the character development. One added that she's was emotionally involved from the start.

This has made me encouraged enough to actually try and finish it. You know, not just write 10,000 words that go nowhere and offer nothing.

So regular readers of TamaRant may see a shift emerge. I may spend more time talking about my experiences at playing like a writer. You might see blog posts that do nothing but talk about my love for Romeo and Juliette. You might read the likely-to-be-boring posts about how much I love Panera workers. You might see polls on what's the best name for a science teacher (My vote: Mr. Iago). I ask you not to be alarmed but to play along with me as I travel this new chapter, and the next one, and the next one....