Writing Classes and the Life of a Writer

It's no surprise to many that know me that I enjoy writing. But what is a surprise is that I have yet to be published. Well, it's no surprise to me but to others it is. And no, I do not include my shared fanfiction writing in the whole 'being published' thing either.

I took a writing course all the way back in high school, but the teacher never went over structure or anything like that. It was basically just a 'write what you want and I'll mark it according to how much I like it' class. I learned absolutely nothing during that year.

I then picked up professional writing via college. I used those skills to write a training manual during my first contract with my first call center job. But I still didn't do all that much with those skills. But I kept writing stories - fanfic, some original, and everything in between - but never got one to the point of finishing the story. I always ran into the same issue of knowing how I wanted it to end, but no idea how to get there.

This issue persisted during my university years. I got really good at writing academic essays (once I got past the age-old 5x5 essay structure I learned back in the 80s), complete with proper citations for two different essay styles (the English and History departments at my uni used different citation styles and they were a bitch to keep separate). But for my personal writing of fiction I still ran into the same issues I had for years.

Sure, I could have taken a uni creative writing class, but in my mind I was worried that it would be like my high school creative writing class all over again. And I was not about to fork over a big chunk of change for that. So, I kept writing and stopping whenever I would hit that roadblock again as I didn't have the toolset to work past it.

For the class I am taking I have purposely put aside my tendency to just wing it as I write. I actually have a basic plot for my main character - I know where she started and I know where she will end up, and I am slowly building everything in between. I now know how to build up the meat of the story to get from Point A to Point Z - writing scenes that will build my character into the person I want her to be. Not to mention learning when and where to toss in info about the story's world.

Before the course had even started I had a general idea of the story I wanted to write, and had started filling out story worksheets that I had found online so I knew my characters and setting much more intimately than any I'd created before. I've even been jotting down notes to help myself along the way so I don't forget the names/spelling of characters, realms, and everything in between.

Of course, it's not always easy to write daily. I work full-time and I am kept so busy that I do not have the time during my shift to write anything, and often by the time I get home I am so mentally exhausted that I simply cannot find the words in me to add more to my story. Not to mention that sometimes my mental or physical health gets in the way. For example, last week I was struggling with really high blood sugar and it made sitting in front of a computer difficult. Honestly, it was high enough that I should have marched my stubborn ass to the hospital, but I decided against it largely because I knew that it would mean insulin injections and I didn't have my extended health information yet. Such is life.

But I am going to make an effort to write daily. Even if it's not my book. I am not going to set myself a time frame to become a successful writer who can support themselves on their writing alone, because I know as soon as I do that then my brain will work against me and I will ultimately fail. It's just the way my brain is hardwired. To me, just getting this one book into a state where I feel comfortable submitting it will be huge, and then submitting it will be nerve-wracking! It helps that the person teaching the writing course runs a local publishing company and he seems really excited about my story so far.

Honestly, I do not even care if I don't make a lot of money off of the book. Success will be in the form of it getting published in the first place! And I already have a sequel planned out in my head...maybe even a third book in the series!

In the meantime though, I have to slog through my daily life and try to get things accomplished. But I'm at the age now where getting up in the morning and going on with my life is often good enough.