Bringing the Fun Back Into Writing

I've listened to more podcasts featuring Dean Wesley Smith talking about all of the wrong thinking that grows up around the writing and publishing professions, the myths that shape perceptions and expectations about what it means to be a writer. Listening to someone talk who has been in the writing game for over forty years like Smith has been an insightful thing these last several years. More so, when you sit there listen to him talk about how writing should just plain be fun.

Fun. That's something that got lost for a while. I remember coming up with stories when I was kid, sometimes hammering them out on my Dad's old electric typewriter, or simply writing them down or drawing them out. I had fun. It wasn't such a sober and serious thing to be a writer.

When I started writing my first novel, I enjoyed the act of creating, and finding inspiration in other writers like Lloyd Alexander and Robert Jordan. It was their books that nudged me more in the direction of being a writer. Hard to believe that was almost twenty years ago.

The path to being a writer has been long, meandering, and often foolish. I've stopped and started, doubting myself and my abilities time and again. I've let procrastination and distraction derail me for longer than I'd like to admit.

Still, I come back to the page. I don't want to give up on this profession. I still want it to be part of how I make my way in the world. I want revive some of that childish fun that seems to be innate in the creative process. Storytelling is one of those precious pursuits. I've tasted and found it a good thing, and I want to do it more.

That's what I've been doing here lately.

I know also know that another part of it is knowing when to get out of my own way just so the creative self has room to breath, to build, to grow something wonderful, something entertaining. That's what fiction writing is all about, really. Entertainment and may be a little something more that digs deeper into the heart of what it is to be human.

I don't know how much time I have left on Earth, but I do know that I want to use some of it to tell stories and have fun doing it.