I wonder how other writers write? Does it just come naturally, or are they like me, sitting, waiting, internet surfing; just looking for the magic? Sometimes it feels like magic, too, when an idea just arrives from out of a clear blue sky, at least on the rare days, like today, when we really do have a clear blue sky.
I suppose I am taking a bit of a liberty calling myself a writer at all. It’s a bit like playing for the local Sunday pub team and calling myself a footballer. But these days it’s what I do and indeed have done for a staggering ten years since I quit the wacky world of full-time work.
Before then, other things got in the way. The aforementioned work, girls, football, music, definitely the pub and eventually, for the last 35 years the forever relationship and offspring. Now I have the time, I just about have the energy, I’m not sure about the ability but thanks to my IT department (thanks, John. I owe you more than you could ever imagine) I have Eclectic Blue, my gift from me to, well, me.
We’ve established that I write because I love to write and I write because I love words. Every day in every way, I try to improve my writing, to use words I have never used before. You cannot imagine how exciting that is to me. And every time it happens, I wish I had made a note, perhaps in a small book, of which word it was, the context in which I used it and when.
How can I be sure I’ve never used it before? I can’t, obviously, because in the last decade I have self-published 5779 blogs. If you think that’s shocking, there are also 936 draft blogs that I either deemed unworthy of publication or just gave up on. A triumph of quantity over quality, perhaps, but feeling compelled to write every day, then not writing is not really an option.
I’ve been planning a blog like this for weeks, although I don’t know why. And I kept getting stuck over one part of it. Who am I trying to impress? Well, generally, I’m not trying to impress anyone, which is probably just as well, but there is something else going on. Some of my best friends were and are actual writers, people who literally did and still do write for a living. Actual writers, who understand grammar in a way I never could. What I got hung up was on the actual word that explained how I felt about real writers reading my stuff.
I went through a good few. Justification? Not really. Approval? Not quite. Recognition? No. Validation, yes but not quite. Affirmation? Hmm. Maybe. How about all of the above in one way or another? But when one writer says, “That was decent” I’m on the third step to heaven.
I’d be much better, I know, with a copywriter and a sub-editor, but given this blog runs at a substantial albeit nominal loss, I doubt whether I shall be able to employ their services anytime soon. So, my loyal reader, what you get, at all times, is my best shot and at least I can claim justifiably that every cock-up, typo and chunk of misinformation is my fault and mine alone.
Perhaps, there is no single way to write. Just like there is no single way to paint, to sculpt, to sing, to dance; to do anything that comes under, however loosely, the heading ‘art’.
But maybe I am better off without a copywriter and a sub-editor because what I publish, warts and all, is all my own work. If it’s rubbish, at least it’s my rubbish. And I can write exactly what I want. When I put it like that, things are better that way.
Many thanks for putting up with me, dear reader. Here’s to ten more years, if I live that long, that is.
