Spinning Words

 

Created in Canva by Pauline

Saying you are a writer without any books to point to is sort of lame. I’m one of those people. However, this is the year that I finally got my own author’s website. Right now, it isn’t much, but I’m turning over new leaves left and right and have been on a relatively strict writing regimen.

I used to think that a writer needed ideas and a great story from somewhere outside of themselves. Like I could see myself staring off into a beautiful sky and suddenly, abruptly start pounding out the first draft of something that would inevitably end up as a Pulitzer Prize-winning book.

Nope, that doesn’t work.

Writing is noticing things. It’s being able to grab onto a fragment and then turn it into a whole 20 yards of beautiful material. Spinning words out of dreams. Sounds like a good title. I’ll use it for this piece.

Writing is also believing in yourself. I went for many years as a wanna-be writer. As I am generally uncomfortable in large groups, I would use what I wanted to do with my writing as an opening gambit to what may or may not turn into nice cocktail party chattering. “Someday, I will be a writer,” I said it a lot. In those days, I also drank a lot. Now, I don’t drink, and I no longer go to parties. I write instead.

Anyway, it was 1989 when I started working at the last job I’d ever have before I retired. I was happy to get the job. We needed two incomes for our family. It was work I enjoyed, and the job changed over the years to the point where, just before I retired, I was a boss. Not the boss, just one of them. Eventually, I would learn where all the bodies were buried. I remember that first day. I was a clerk. The lowest of the low. And, rather than being happy, I was dismayed. I thought to myself, “How many more years am I going to go around saying someday I want to be a writer?” I realized the ill-conceived plan of being a writer without actually being a writer.

That was the day I began to write. It took me three years to write a swashbuckling, sword-swinging, dragon-slaying, astral-traveling book. There was also romance, mystery, and intrigue involved. It was everything I wanted to read but couldn’t lay my hands on. So, I wrote it.

It took three years. It’s still on a bookshelf in the house somewhere. I also think there might be a copy of it under the bed. It turned out to be about 80,000 words. I spent a year and a half making the rounds of seven different publishers, sending the manuscript over the transom. Nobody wanted to publish it. There were some compliments on the writing. I’m still not sure that anybody actually read it. I do admit to being a much better writer now, but that was my first attempt at writing something intended for more than my eyes only.

You don’t need to have an education to write. You do, though, need to read. Stuff. Everything and anything. Whatever interests you. You need to read fiction. You need to read fact. The facts are what you use to make your stories believable. Even if you are on a planet where there is no air, you need to have some sort of grounding in chemistry and biology to make it sound just the tiniest bit real. At least, that’s what I think.

You don’t actually need to be an expert in anything; however, having life experience is good. Which means you need to make many attempts at growing up. Also, you need to read the bad stuff. This will inform you of how not to write.

From my own perspective, as a 70-year-old lady, I understand now just how difficult it is to grow up. Growing up is not a matter of having years. Growing up is having difficult life lessons and being able to cope with tragedy, with heartbreak, and with disappointments. These come into anybody’s life, and if you haven’t already encountered the pain and heartbreak of living, you will be hard-pressed to convince a reader you know what you are talking about.

Besides that, learning something isn’t a one-stop process. Many times, the things we learn as human beings take years. It’s like therapy. You go to a therapist and say, “I can’t do this and I want to.” They ask you some questions. You answer. The therapist, who is trained to be observant, realizes that this one particular thing is something you can’t or won’t talk about. They think to themselves that eventually he or she will lead you back around to the thing so that you can begin to stop telling yourself lies. In the meantime, there are other things that you can talk about.

It is all a gradual process. The therapist gives you tools that you can use on your own to cope or to heal whatever it is that is bothering you at that moment in time. Notice I didn’t say "cure you forever"?

A person can only take so much of anything at one time. You get past your original complaint. At some time, you say to your therapist that you think you are done and that you don’t want to continue therapy. The therapist agrees, and you go about your merry life.

Until something happens.

It might be years down the road, or it could be months. Suddenly, you feel the need to get yourself back into therapy. Is this where you say to yourself, “They were no good, I need a different therapist. The last one didn’t do the job, and I want nothing to do with them anymore.” Fine, be that way. Yes, it happens that you might like one therapist over another. That’s being human. But these are trained people, and what has happened has absolutely nothing to do with your therapist. It has to do with you.

Together, you and your therapist got you to a point where you could function adequately. You were happy. You were productive. Things were peachy keen. Then, the bottom dropped out of your world. Somebody looked at you sideways or said something that hurt you. Whatever it was that pushed your buttons initially, pushed your buttons again. You think the therapy you had the first time didn’t work.

Well, it did work. You were able to crawl out of whatever was holding you down. You got back to “normal” again. You were happy. You had the tools you needed to continue being happy. What the hell happened?

Your higher self, or inner self, decided that you were now strong enough to learn more. So, go learn some more about yourself. Get back into therapy. Dust off the tools you were given before (deep breathing, meditation, journaling, support groups, physical exercise) and either do it yourself or find somebody who can help you.

It was nobody’s fault. 99% of the population has some sort of mental issue. Why are you so special that you don’t? Even psychotherapists get regular counseling. Whether they need it or not. It is mandated.

So, how does any of this help a writer? If you can tell yourself the truth, if you can understand yourself, then you can also develop complex characters and wonderful storylines. I had no idea that would be the case when I originally wanted to be a writer.

It is what happened to me.

So, thanks for reading. Leave me a comment to see if you have experienced some of these things too. Tell me where you write and publish. 

🌺Pauline Evanosky 🌺

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