'What if?'
I sit in front of my laptop with the lights off. It's evening and the sun has already set, so the only light is coming from the blank whit word document displayed on my screen.
I struggle to come up with a good opening paragraph for my story. It has to be great. It has to grab the reader's attention and pique their interest. I type a few words, pause, and then backspace over them. I try again. That sounds pretty good. I'll go with that. I begin the next paragraph. And the next. Soon, the story begins to take on it's own life in my head. It is now generating itself as fast as I type. So I just keep typing.
Before I know it, I've written several pages of what looks like to be a promising short story. But I get up too early to stay up too late, and it's late. I click save and close the laptop, and I am immediately engulfed in darkness. So it goes when I am writing.
I just wish I could get myself to make more time to do it. Life (and a bit of laziness) seems to always get in the way. I love writing. It's a form of escape. Of course, I have others, like wood carving, video games, and working out. But writing is a special form of escape for me.
I caught the writing bug way back in high school. English and creative writing were two of my favorite classes. And I'll give props to two of my favorite teachers, Mrs. Thompson (English) and Mrs. Nelson (Creative Writing). Those two nurtured my love for writing (and correct spelling and grammar).
Since then, I've written poetry, short stories, and short plays. And I've always written fiction. I just can't get myself to write non-fiction. It just seems to me to be so...pedantic. It also seems, and I apologize in advance to all of my readers who may be non-fiction writers, boring.
There really is not a feeling like the one I get when I write. Imagine being able to wake up in the morning and get to decide everything. I mean everything. If you want to spend the day on the beach, just think about the beach and - poof - there you are. If you want to be rich and powerful, boom - you've got money lining the walls of your executive penthouse suite. Or maybe you have loftier goals in mind. Want to live in a world where war doesn't exist? Or pollution? Or climate change? Just write it!
See? That's the feeling! Like everything is possible, and you control everything! You know, it's really kind of like being God. Not that I would want to be God, mind you, but what I mean is that when you write fiction, you get to control absolutely everything. The setting, the characters, the action, the circumstance. You don't (necessarily) have to rely on history, or facts. You are the boss.
My favorite genre is science fiction. Why? I'll answer that with a question. What if our world could be completely different? I mean completely. Different people, government, technology, races, species, religions, atmosphere. Maybe even a different planet. A completely different world would bring a completely different set of problems and issues. And maybe some of those issues would be the same, but they would still be on a world other than our own, where anything is possible. That's why I like science fiction. Because when I write, I can think in 'what if.' What if our world was really like this? What would we do? What events would transpire? It challenges me to think outside of our current realm of possibility and play with an idea in an arena where the possibilities are limited only to the imagination.
I have been wanting to write (well, actually to finish) a novel for a really, really long time. I think since around the late '90's I have come up with half a dozen ideas, and have started writing 2 novels. One idea actually got me 5 chapters into a novel before I realized I was inexorably stuck.
Maybe it's time to try again. Of course, I have long since lost those 5 chapters, but I can come up with another idea. All I have to do is think 'what if'.
Tell me about your writing adventures! I'd love to hear them! If you don't write, what do you do to escape?
I struggle to come up with a good opening paragraph for my story. It has to be great. It has to grab the reader's attention and pique their interest. I type a few words, pause, and then backspace over them. I try again. That sounds pretty good. I'll go with that. I begin the next paragraph. And the next. Soon, the story begins to take on it's own life in my head. It is now generating itself as fast as I type. So I just keep typing.
Before I know it, I've written several pages of what looks like to be a promising short story. But I get up too early to stay up too late, and it's late. I click save and close the laptop, and I am immediately engulfed in darkness. So it goes when I am writing.
I just wish I could get myself to make more time to do it. Life (and a bit of laziness) seems to always get in the way. I love writing. It's a form of escape. Of course, I have others, like wood carving, video games, and working out. But writing is a special form of escape for me.
I caught the writing bug way back in high school. English and creative writing were two of my favorite classes. And I'll give props to two of my favorite teachers, Mrs. Thompson (English) and Mrs. Nelson (Creative Writing). Those two nurtured my love for writing (and correct spelling and grammar).
Since then, I've written poetry, short stories, and short plays. And I've always written fiction. I just can't get myself to write non-fiction. It just seems to me to be so...pedantic. It also seems, and I apologize in advance to all of my readers who may be non-fiction writers, boring.
There really is not a feeling like the one I get when I write. Imagine being able to wake up in the morning and get to decide everything. I mean everything. If you want to spend the day on the beach, just think about the beach and - poof - there you are. If you want to be rich and powerful, boom - you've got money lining the walls of your executive penthouse suite. Or maybe you have loftier goals in mind. Want to live in a world where war doesn't exist? Or pollution? Or climate change? Just write it!
See? That's the feeling! Like everything is possible, and you control everything! You know, it's really kind of like being God. Not that I would want to be God, mind you, but what I mean is that when you write fiction, you get to control absolutely everything. The setting, the characters, the action, the circumstance. You don't (necessarily) have to rely on history, or facts. You are the boss.
My favorite genre is science fiction. Why? I'll answer that with a question. What if our world could be completely different? I mean completely. Different people, government, technology, races, species, religions, atmosphere. Maybe even a different planet. A completely different world would bring a completely different set of problems and issues. And maybe some of those issues would be the same, but they would still be on a world other than our own, where anything is possible. That's why I like science fiction. Because when I write, I can think in 'what if.' What if our world was really like this? What would we do? What events would transpire? It challenges me to think outside of our current realm of possibility and play with an idea in an arena where the possibilities are limited only to the imagination.
I have been wanting to write (well, actually to finish) a novel for a really, really long time. I think since around the late '90's I have come up with half a dozen ideas, and have started writing 2 novels. One idea actually got me 5 chapters into a novel before I realized I was inexorably stuck.
Maybe it's time to try again. Of course, I have long since lost those 5 chapters, but I can come up with another idea. All I have to do is think 'what if'.
Tell me about your writing adventures! I'd love to hear them! If you don't write, what do you do to escape?
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