Wednesday I finished a book called The Bookish Life of Nina Hill. I enjoyed it very much. Partially because I related to the character (she loves books and has anxiety), but also because I loved the way the author (Abbi Waxman) wrote.
She has a very casual, conversational style. Which is something I strive for, but I’m not sure if I pull off. It’s as if she’s sitting with you and telling you a story. In a way, she makes you another character. Not in the story itself, but you feel like she’s talking directly to you. And there are even a couple of times that she even addressed the reader.
I suppose her style of writing is a lot like the voice I give to this blog. I tend to imagine I’m “talking” to someone when I write. Granted, I’m writing in first person and she used third, but still… I would love to give that kind of voice to a fiction piece. Or perhaps it would be helpful in my memoir writing? Either way, I’d like to see what I can do about incorporating the way I write this blog into how I write a story. It’s something to think about.
I haven’t written any more on the fiction piece I started and I haven’t really made much progress in the planning. But I’m starting to think that I need to stop planning and just write. Last night in my Write2Heal group we discussed the difference between creating and producing. Producing’s goal is the end product. Creating is more about the process and letting your intuition guide you. I think it was intuition that created most of the stories I’ve written. It’s unusual for me to actually complete anything that I spend too much time planning.
I’d never made that connection before just now. It’s true, though. When I spend too much time trying to plan out all the details, I procrastinate and get stuck. But when I just sit down and write, something always comes out of my fingers. This must be what Lauren means when she talks about intuitive writing. I think that’s what I need to do. Just write without knowing where anything is going. I tried to sit and world build, come up with characters and a plot, or plan out a sequence of events, but instead of making progress I’ve just felt frustrated.
Why is it that I fight my intuition? Why do I feel like I have to know everything before I start to write? I think it’s the anxiety. No, I know it is. I feel anxious about not knowing where the story will go, just like I feel anxious about not knowing how new experiences will go. So maybe allowing the writing to flow freely will be good practice for letting life flow? I guess it’s worth a try. And honestly, why am I so afraid? It’s not like writing something that turns out to be crap is going to effect my life in any way. At worst it’s a waste of time, but chances are that even then I’ll learn something.
That’s it. I need to stop journaling/blogging and just let a story flow out of me. It’s okay if I don’t know what that story will be just yet.
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