I don't know exactly when I wandered away from writing as a regular exercise, but for the last few years (decade?) I've employed it for the purely functional purpose of conveying dry technical details in my job. I used to love writing. As a kid I would forego doing my homework to create imaginary people and places and create situations for them to explore and crises to escape. I didn't mind if what I wrote didn't come out quite right and I had to rework it over and over again, but now I do and it's frustrating as hell.
I've been working on the same "short story" for the last three or four days and I've only gotten to the second part of the outline. I keep writing and rewriting only do discover that what I had written is too wordy for the tight, fast-paced mode of the short story or that I am putting the setback event in the wrong location or that I'm telling not showing. I wondered last night, "When did I ever love this?"
But I find that I still do.
I've been playing at this all my life, but never having truly devoted myself to the art, I'm still an unpracticed amateur. I have to keep going, keep working, keep writing so that everything in my head will come out right on paper.
