The schlong and the short of it

I've always been a writer, even when I was little, I couldn't stop myself from putting my thoughts on paper.

I've also been equally as vicious with judgment of my writing, and lacked the self esteem to put it out there in any kind of meaningful way until the last couple of years or so.  I've done some citizen journalism and have written feature articles for some local publications.  Of course, I've done a ton of writing in a PR/marketing sense for work and at the top of my job description is "writer."  So things are beginning to move in the right direction but I've had a lot of my own self doubt to surmount in this department.  I guess I'm a late bloomer in a lot of areas of my life.

This weekend I had to work on my first assignment for my short story class.  I thought it would be a breeze - piece of cake.  I've got a vivid imagination, I'm wildly dramatic and I write short stories all the time.  No problem, right?

I wound up producing something I'm proud of to workshop in next week's class.  But it was no easy feat.  I'm really surprised at how lonely that empty Word document looked.  I also had a tough time focusing.  The teacher suggested that the best way to identify material suitable for short story development is to quietly focus, surrender - even.  This is, not coincidentally, a discipline I struggle with in other areas of my life.  I'm not really a letter-goer.  So it took me some time to quiet my mind in order to come up with that little scrap that was story-worthy.  I'll keep you posted, not sure if I plan to marry myself to the concept yet.  I actually wrote three story fragments and I might continue to pursue some other ideas.  But I was satisfied that something was put onto paper that I feel I can turn in for analysis.  I veil some things that have been going on with me in a half Jewish character called Monica who falls for an rabbi at an orthodox synagogue while she's walking a fostered dog that was sort of unloaded on her by her boss.  I address lying by omission and codependency.  I also talk about making bad romantic choices.  I wanted to come up with a hyperbolic character and an intensely dramatic conclusion but I thought it was best to stick to subjects I know as I'm getting to know my fellow students and the professor.

What I did love about this was the PROCESS even though at times it was pretty uncomfortable.  I do feel more and more confident in my writing abilities with each word I put out there.  Just putting this blog together reminded me of how meaningful it is to organize my thoughts and purvey my views.  I look forward to this becoming a more widely-read blog and hope that the topics I cover are of interest to others, too.  Finally, it's really good practice to get my ideas out into the universe because it helps me overcome the fear of judgement, and it helps me be less critical of myself.  The thought process is that I have what I think is a good idea, then I stew on it and by the time it's done cooking in my brain, it's such a crappy idea and I have no good ideas so I don't even bother putting them out there.  But the blog enables me to just blither away at the keyboard for a few minutes, putting my raw concepts onto the screen without totally thinking it through (except to edit of course), and then it's out of my brain and I can move on.  I rarely go back and edit the posts, but I always feel proud of what I've written.

I felt the same way assembling the "Other writings" page - that is just a beginning of the writing I've done over the years with more to come as I move through this process.  I started feeling really proud of my contribution and hope on the strength of my efforts I can do much more as a writer as time goes on.