When I was 13, someone came to my school to talk to us about suicide prevention. They showed Billy Joel's "Second Wind" video—I was fascinated. It hadn't occurred to me prior to that day that someone could be depressed enough to kill themselves. For my next English class writing assignment, I wrote a story about a teen boy who commits suicide. I got an "A." My confidence as a writer was now teacher-endorsed.
This confidence carried me through high school and college where I wrote plays, short stories, newspaper columns, and TV scripts. (I was a communications major with a concentration in television.) But something happened after college. I made career and life choices that pulled me away from creative writing. My writing efforts grew sporadic and I lost confidence, often to the point of editing my ideas before they hit the page, killing them instead of taking a chance.
Now it is spring of 2015—many, MANY years after high school and college—and I am still making only sporadic attempts at writing fiction. I am a single parent with two kids and a full-time job, all of which means I have a multitude of excuses to push writing aside day after day.
But there is also something about this spring that has been transformative for me—I feel as though I've come out of a mental hibernation. I have started organizing the house (I've joined the cult of Marie Kondo, I'll admit it), watching what I eat, finding new levels of patience with my teenager, and generally feeling capable of almost anything.
Except creative writing. There I am still blocked, or I was until just this week. It started with yet another attempt to find inspiration. I decided to look for a writing prompt app on my iPhone. Sure enough, I found one that got me writing twice in as many days. But with no real deadlines or expectations, I found reasons not to continue on the third day.
That's when I made the decision to start this blog. I want something that will keep me writing regularly, and if that means putting myself out there and feeling an obligation to keep producing something in case someone might read it, why not? And I need to get over the fear that everything I write might suck. It probably does. So why not accept it and roll with it.
Some may wonder if this is yet another gimmick in a long line of "something-every-day" challenges that have permeated the Internet. Of course it is. The idea of writing every day is wholly unoriginal, as is doing something every day and telling strangers about it online. I'm not the first, nor will I be the last. But, if this benefits my stalled fiction writing efforts and crisis of confidence, while at the same time either entertaining someone or making them feel better about their own skills by comparison, then it has served a purpose, gimmick or not.
I hope you'll read my attempts and comment. I am a fragile egg, but I'm ready to put it all out there. I know that it will suck for a while, but I hope it will improve. Let's see how this goes.
The Rules
It's pretty simple. I will write for at least 15 minutes every day in this blog. I will start with the Writing Challenge app (see below), but I may move on to other free writing inspirations later. I'm allowed to make simple changes as I am writing, but I can't go back to edit later. (Well, except if I spot a typo. I can't let those go…)The App
I will start my free writing with the Writing Challenge app (produced by Literautas.com). Here's a quick explanation of how it works.When you press "start," you go to a screen that says "Start writing a story that..." followed by the Step 1 writing prompt. For example, "Start writing a story that... starts with this dialogue: I have an idea!" You can accept the prompt or ask for another. Once you accept the prompt, you write for one minute (or for however many minutes you choose in the app setting). When the time is up, the screen shows the Step 2 prompt, which has you add an idea, word, character, sentence, place, or action to your story. At each step, you can accept the prompt or ask for a different one.
Update:
Hello Again
I've now posted 13 freewrites—a baker's dozen!—and I'm starting to have my own ideas about what I want to write. It's not that I'm cured of whatever was blocking me before (I'm still busy, still a procrastinator, yadda yadda), but my brain is showing hints of renewed creativity. So it's important that I keep going and not lose this daily writing habit.The problem now is that when I have my own idea brewing, I find myself clicking the "Another" button on the app to get different suggestions for the step that I'm on. You can click the button multiple times until you find what you like, and I've been clicking it repeatedly to get suggestions that will fit into what I already know I want to write about. Which we can all agree is stupid for a number of reasons, but mostly because it keeps me from actually writing and it makes me cranky. Some people like to drink when they write. Some people are inspired by their bad moods. I've found that I need to be happy or trying to outdo someone else. Making myself cranky achieves neither of those.
So, I've decided that I will freewrite whatever story idea pops into my happy and/or competitive-feeling brain that day, but I can go back to the app inspirations anytime I need them. Or I'll pull some suggestions from the many writing books I've accumulated over the years. The possibilities are endless.
Ultimately, whatever the source of the writing ideas, I'm feeling quite accomplished now that I have written something every day for the past (nearly) two weeks, and I don't even mind that some of it isn't particularly good. Because I have a feeling that some of it isn't all that bad, either. So I'll keep writing.
And if you're out there reading, thanks!
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