There has been a slight change in our programming schedule for the month. Have no fear, the Storytime post that was to be today has been delayed only for a short time and will appear on November 3rd. Instead, to help prepare those of you who are about to embark on NaNoWriMo, I will be posting a series of blogs I have previously published about writing. This post first appeared in June of 2015 and has been updated with new information.
While I spend time encouraging others to achieve their dreams I can’t help but think of my own. The dreamer is always thinking about their dreams and I am no different. Most of the experiences that I write about here on the Dreamanvil have come from the pursuit of my own dreams. I want to be an author, I want to have others read and enjoy the stories that I write. So lets spend a bit of time talking about that. Writing.
There is something enchanting about words. I may not have a formal education as a writer but I’ve never let that stop me. I have always been drawn to words and the stories that they weave. Some of my oldest memories are scouring the public library for new books to read as a child. As I grew, reading became a refuge and a cherished past time. I loved being ushered into another world totally foreign to my own. But it was not enough. Eventually I began to tell stories of my own. I used a variety of mediums, sketching, painting, sculpting to tell stories. Soon I came to realize that words were the best way to communicate my vision to others. I remember writing poetry and songs in high school (I made sure to burn them). I’ve written several dramatic readings for church and a score of unfinished plays and scripts in college. Eventually culminating in the five book manuscripts that I have written so far, with many more on the way.
There is something freeing about writing down words to tell a story. There are no rules about how to tell a story. No magic formula that will turn bad characters good and thin plots into deep introspective works of the soul. That magic must come within, the author summons all of her imagination and courage and plunges forward. Setting is used as a character. Character are used to drive the plot. The plot is there hidden in plain sight by the actions of the characters. The author knows what is going on in peoples head, the thought and motivations that formed them. Time is an illusion for the story teller, often being rewound or sped up to move the story along. Time and place, character and plot are all strings to be woven together into a tapestry of the author’s own design. All of this is done with words.
Likewise, there are no rules about who can and can’t write. You don’t need a degree, you don’t need a certification, or pay for a fancy title, to write a story. If you have an opinion you don’t need to seek anyone’s approval to write it down first. If you have a voice no one can stop you from using it. The power of words can be wielded by anyone with the desire and the will. There is nothing stopping you, all you need is a little bit of imagination and a pen and some paper. That is how things started with me. Sketching soon turned to writing, short blurbs grew longer and longer with each new project. Now I write until I can sketch my characters then I turn back to writing their stories.
When I was younger, crawling through the library looking for books, I didn’t want to be a writer, it was to big for me. Instead I wanted to move into another story telling medium, I wanted to direct movies. I soon realized that the spectacle that I wanted to create was best left in the hands of others. As I grew older I wanted to tell stories unhindered by budgets, and reality, and time. Words are the best tools I have to share my imaginations. Not only are they free to use, they allow me to express anything I can dream up and anything my imagination can construct. My ideas are often to big to be placed anywhere else except on the blank page in front of me. When I can’t paint or draw the stories in my head, I do what I have seemingly always done, I turn to words.