Writing Exercise at Yesterday's Meeting

I'm going to toss my two cents into the blog arena, so bear with me, folks!

I won't go into much detail about yesterday's meeting other than to say that I was delighted to see so many new faces! I hope to see you all again next month. Nedra will probably post something outlining our activities.

I wanted to say that yesterday's short writing exercise really sparked something. I seem to be running into a lot more people writing for the Young Adult (YA) market and well, a story kind of leaped into my mind that might be marketable to that market (how many times can I use "market" in one sentence ;o). I ended up coming home from the meeting with the skeleton of a story plot and then slammed out a 1,500 word story. I'm actually pretty pleased with the result. It has to have been one of the easiest short stories I've ever written and while it's still in first draft, I feel it has potential.*

That's one of the things I've had to learn on the road to becoming a writer. I had to learn how to give myself permission to write, and write badly if necessary, as long as I write! You, my fellow writers, all know what I mean. At one point, back in the formative years, we're all taught that if we can't do it right, don't do it! But the need to do it right can sometimes keep us from doing it at all. We self-edit, over-critique, denigrate, etc.

Don't do it! Adopt the Nike slogan for your own and Just Do It! Get it out, get it down and get it finished! Then, you can do the nasty "edit" thingee!

Yeah, it's just that sometimes a person has to hear it about umpteen hundred times, get hit over the head with the ol' "clue by four" and then maybe in a "sudden flash" realize what everyone's been saying. Just write.

Write and then rewrite and then rewrite again. Nothing leaps forth fully formed and perfect - well, nothing written by anyone I know or know of (most of the famous writers speak of the necessary evil of revision/edit). Just write and tell the ol' critic sitting on the back of your chair to take a chill pill, shut up, and let you do your stuff.

So, that's it for now. I'm going to get back to it. Happy Writing!

*OMG, I just realized that the exercise produced what could be considered an "outline" of a story that I then translated into a fully fleshed out story! Wow! And I thought I couldn't do it that way! See-yet another fun discovery!