It’s interesting. The more I focus on writing this nonfiction book that’s been percolating in my head for several months now, the more I find myself writing fiction. I mean, I’m not setting any records here, but it feels like it’s been a long time since I last had a story demand to fall from my fingers quite like the one on Monday did.
I’ll be saving that story to submit to the next quarter of Writers of the Future. Unless I write more before June 30th. I guess that is a possibility. If that ends up being the case, then I’ll decide which to submit at that point.
I’m not entirely confident that this story mindset will last. Of course, by writing stories, I’m kind of avoiding writing the other book. Maybe that’s what I need to do to motivate myself: have multiple projects and procrastinate them off each other.
But it could also be that opening myself to writing that book is allowing me to be open to other stories floating through my brain. Though, to be fair, this last story felt more like the start of a book than a short story. Or maybe it’s the short story prequel to a novel. It kind of feels like I’ve cracked open the edges of a world, and it’s up to me whether I want to crank it open wide and really learn/define it.
I think that reaching an understanding that I am not a visualizer has helped inform my writing. Helped me understand where I was missing things in my writing; missing that visual description because I don’t find visual description to be that important when I read. I don’t see the scenes in my head like a TV show, so why would I write in such a way that others would be able to create that?
I like writing; it’s one of the ways that I learn the world and process my own understanding, by creating stories or telling my real life stories or just musing about in a semi-philosophical way. I don’t think that I’ll ever stop writing, even if I decide to stop actively trying to sell my writing. I do hope that I can someday make a living off of my writing, but I’m not pursuing it strenuously. Slow and steady, keeping the day job, and maybe, with this next book project, doing some actual promotion.
I will talk myself into this.