Writers write, right?

I've been thinking a lot about writing.

I'm lying. That's not really what I've been thinking about. But my mind has been aimlessly wandering in dark and unhappy places this week. So I'm going to write about writing. Because frankly, I miss you guys! And writing. And I don't want to write about dark, unhappy things.

I'm reading a book...two books, actually. One is called Write Good Or Die, and the other is Shoeless Joe, by W.P. Kinsella. Field of Dreams was based on it.

I'm in awe of Kinsella's writing. Never heard of him before or since this book, but his imagery is amazing. I think my new favorite sentence is "Moonlight butters the whole Iowa night." Isn't that just an amazing sentence? In six little words I can see a perfectly clear night, black as far as the eye can see, lit by a huge, bright moon...and all the stars! And hear the crickets? (I wonder if they have bullfrogs in Iowa?)

The next sentence is "Clover and corn smells are thick as syrup." Now see, that just made me crave some pancakes.

The writer in me loves a good piece of writing anyway. And I adore description. Too bad entire stories can't be written just by describing things. You've got to create characters and make them move and talk in believable ways. My characters' dialogues usually end with me going "Who the heck would actually say that," balling it up and tossing it in the trash. *sigh* I have some work ahead of me if I'm ever to write my Great American Novel.

The book on writing is really neat, too. A bunch of published, successful writers offer essays giving their advice to newbies like me. Basically, they say, my first novel will suck. I should just accept that fact and write it anyway. Harsh, no? And then I move on to reading about character development and stuff that's so far ahead of where I am and I think, "Ha ha...riiiiight. I should stick to newspapers and just tell what happened."

Nah. The message really is to approach it as a learning experience. Stephen King, they remind me, might have become incredibly successful with his first book, Carrie, but he had five non-published novels first. It's a process. And I know it's true. I bet if I  unearthed some old Bell Ringers, I would see how much I've grown as a journalist since I started there in 2003.

The hardest part is getting started. Which I did. I actually did! I'm a whole page and a half into it. I started like a week ago. I have ideas and notes, and I've revised the heck out of what I've already written. Sounds really good, ya'll. But my character...she doesn't even have a name! Truly though, when I say the hardest part is getting started, I mean the hardest part is sitting your butt in a chair, opening the dang document and committing words to paper. Even if they suck. For real.

But now that I've spent (some of) my creative energies into a blog post, I believe I'll save the rest to put into my novel. Tomorrow. :)