Writerly Ramble.

You know, I think I’m just going to have to give in and get a shirt made that says, “WARNING: TMI” on it. Some people at work were making fun of me for saying things like, “You have hollows under your cheeks.” “You have a big back.” “Brown and black do go together, especially when you wear that sweater with brown, black, and cream stripes.” How is it that people keep coming to me for fashion advice? Hello? Have you seen how I dress?

So here, once again, is too much information (TMI) with regard to (WRT) my writing life…

It’s been almost exactly a year since I started going to Pikes Peak Writer’s events. I wish I’d started earlier. My one regret in life was that I didn’t have the confidence to start getting serious about writing sooner. Well, to be honest, I was doing pretty well at poetry, and if I’d decided to stay that route, I’d probably be further along than I am now. But I got tired of writing it, and finally realized that I didn’t like to read other people’s poetry, for the most part, and so let it go.

Nevertheless. Wasted time getting around to learning how to write fiction. Had to be done, though, as I was bound and determined, based on a few “writing” books that I’d read, that other people’s opinions were a waste of time, because they were full off fluff and nonsense.

Fortunately, not all writing books were written by people who confuse fluff with content, and I found some of them. And the people who write them! And people who don’t write them, but could!

[Dance dance dance other INTP writers! Dance dance dance.]

Also, it’s been three years since I worked myself up to doing NaNoWriMo, and that has been another valuable experience.

Mix the two together, and you have…a chance in hell. One chance in a million is greatly preferable to zero.

I read an essay over at beckyland about spending 10,000 hours learning a field before you can have any kind of success at it, and feel better. It’s been about ten years since I decided to switch from poetry to fiction (and it was about ten years before that I started writing poetry). IF you count the reading that I’ve done, the reading that I’ve done analytically, then yeah, it works out about right. So I’m due, too. Not due as in, “I deserve it” but due as in “I better push that baby out soon because it’s time.”