Pen of the Gryphon

Being a writer - Part 1 of ?

Wrote this yesterday, posting it today. My first of many essays to come. Whee!*shakes head at own naivety*

I sit in the library, in the center of the tables where one can sit and work. Across from me are three teenage boys, working on some geography project that involves the Taj Mahal. (psst... it's in India) To my right is a slightly balding man on his laptop. I can't tell what he is doing, but his brows are knit and his mouth is in a tight line. He stares intently at the screen. I sit, two issues of Writer's Digest laying open before me. I hide the fact that they are writer's magazines as if it is unclean. All around me is production and I look as though I am not doing anything. I am a writer. Those around me don't understand. They can't, because they are not writers.

Sometimes I think that researching how to write is a waste of time. I hate being told how to use words. I can write a grammatically correct sentence (on occasion *shifty eyes*) and I know how to use the words "I" and "me." But if someone were to ask me how I knew that or tried to tell me why it works that way, I would be lost. I just feel the sentence and I decide whethere it is right or wrong. I hate for people to go in and muck it up. That is MY writing! *clutches to chest protectively*

But there are times when I (need to loosen up) am wrong. There are days when my intuition can only take me so far. It takes a dictionary or an English manual to work out just how that gets put together. I use grammar check a lot. Passive sentence is the bane of my existence. I can't seem to evade it; it haunts my every step. I have to look up how to use my words on occasion, even if it hurts my pride.

And reading how to write; how many books like this have I read? Many. Half the time I forget the advice or ignore it/don't take it and the other half I twist to my own purposes until it becomes completely unrecognizable and we are back to square one. Does any of it actually help? I read the how to write article by glitter_jewele on FictionPress and was inspired. I started an outline for Ocean of Tears. It worked the first time through. But then I reworked the entire storyline and I threw the rest out the window. (I kept copies, but I haven't looked at it for two years.) Then I started again.

But this time there was no outlining. I just jumped feet-first into that sea of blank paper and began to write. I use little one-sentence blurbs for each chapter, but I didn't even start thoes until chapter 18. And they don't alwasy work out. I can think of at least three that ended up becoming completely different from how they were presented by my blurbs.

Is this even worth it? Is my writing even worth it? Well, if nothing else, it gives me something to to focus on, taking my mind off of other hassles. But then, it also gives me another hassle in daily life. It's one more thing I have to worry about, that I finish this chapter. After all, if I let it sit too long, I'll lose inspiration. I know that. And I'm going to finish this book. There have been too many other things that I have started and then lost interest in. So at time it becomes a burden, or an annoyance.

So is this help/hindrance actually worth the time to research? My odds of being published by an actual publishing company are probably fairly slim. And no one else seems to understand. As I sit here, writing this, all I can think about is how alone I am. I am going to try the writer's group at my library, and there is an online community, but at this very moment, I know no one in person who understands the unique role of a writer's life. I tell my mom and she listens sympathetically but she can't understand in the fullest sense what I am talking about.

But despite these shortcomings, my mom is always willing to listen. While when I talk to her about my woes, I am filled with the sense that perhaps what I am doing in meaningless, that she listens to me, expressing interest and asking questions on occasion, it makes me feel loved and appreciated. She actually cares, even if she doesn't understand all that garbled writer's talk "blah:", she knows that it is important to me and appreciates it for that reason.

I guess that, if nothing else, makes it all worth it.