Today, I'm gushing about writing: why I love it, what makes it so lovable, and how our love will last forever.
I wrote a poem about the rain in kindergarten that my teacher wanted to keep, so she asked my mom, who agreed and then spent the next twenty-something years wishing she'd kept a copy, too.
In second grade, my teachers kept my illustrated journal (with permission), and it certainly wasn't, as I thought at the time, because I drew my people with long necks when all the other kids were drawing no-neck people.
That early attention for my writing is probably what spurred me on in the beginning. But my work hasn't always been picked first for kickball. There are plenty of times when it wasn't picked at all. It's all part of that writer's journey every writer enjoys. If everybody loved our writing, we wouldn't push ourselves to be better than we already are. And that would be sad.
I love that people care enough about writing to critique and encourage. I love that writing is a record of the collective consciousness of the entire world through history. More than anything else, writing reflects humanity...even when it's just a grocery list from 1964.
I love the random luck of it--the way words just spill out in some inexplicable order. There are so many synonyms! So many adjectives and adverbs, nouns and verbs that can be combined in countless beautiful ways (countless to my math-challenged mind, at least).
Rain can be described as torrential or timid. A boy can be incorrigible or curious. And when I write it, it is so. The power is highly addictive.
Yesterday, I was reading the beginning of Moby Dick, the part about man's draw to the sea. It's really beautiful. If you haven't read it, I recommend you read at least the first few pages. As I was reading, I actually sighed. Reading this is like drinking ice cream, I thought. Highly addictive.
My appetite for writing--as for reading--will never go away.
What do you love most about writing? What author's work just makes you sigh with joy?
I think what I love about writing most is when I feel the character's emotions. As for an author's work that makes me sigh with joy... I'm not sure. I tend to lean toward books written in first person, characters who are flawed, dealing with many issues. Not sure why, but a story like that doesn't make me feel joy necessarily, it's more like envy, me wishing I could put words together like that too, pull readers in and surprise them the same way. ;)
ReplyDeleteGreat post! I love writing because of the abundance of ideas, of beautiful words and phrases, of lovable characters.
ReplyDeleteI have a few favorite authors, but for each of them, I love their works for different reasons. :)