On Writing Alone

May 20, 2019

Once again my Border Collie Tommie, aka, ‘she-who-has-a-tiny-bladder’ woke me in the darkness of night.  Yes, she’s been to the vet; she’s fine.  But this time it was between midnight and one a.m.  This time my mind said, “Oh goodie.  You’re awake!  Let’s work on The Book.”  And off it went, with music and You Tube searches and tweaks and changes to the ending, as well as notes for the middle.  All in all I think I had about three to four hours of sleep.

The next day my mind was like the inside of one of those Bounce Houses during a wind storm.  No two thoughts ever connected enough to make a coherent sentence.  But the story, oh the story, it is becoming real and exciting and writing it every day is better than watching a million dollar movie.

This morning I asked myself why?  Why write?  Is it a frustrating attempt to divulge yourself to the world?  Is it to leave a legacy?  Is it to paint word pictures?  What drives a writer? Is it money?

A friend’s dad is a published author and is still going strong at ninety-five.  When I kept asking my friend, BH, for technical advice over and over he finally suggested I do as his dad does, join a local writing group.  Members can bring in snippets of their writing for critiques.  The advice can range from the sentence structure to the impossibility of an occurrence during a crime scene.

“Yah, but..”  I yelled across to him from my deck.  He was standing on the other side of my chain link fence with his mail in his hand.  “What if someone steals my story idea?”

“That won’t happen.”  He shook his head.

“What if they hate my ideas?”

“It’s a critique, not a demand to change.  Don’t be overly sensitive.  Take the advice or don’t. ”

I looked online and found an interest app called Meetup.  I searched under ‘Writers’ and found a group in a nearby town.  Maybe, just maybe it’s time to come out from under my shell and seek out others who also have a writing addiction.

Yesterday afternoon I also discovered an FBI contact site  for print writers, movie writers and producers, a place to ask questions, request agents or locations for filming, etc.  Doors are opening.  I’ve discovered there are books about Law Enforcement procedures for writers who sit in front of their laptops or in a comfy chair with pen and paper, writing, writing, writing.

Wow, this is fun.  I’m not alone.  Plus there’s the need for road trips.  You gotta be there beforehand to see and feel what a character will experience, right?  Then there’s the need in my story line for me to test drive a BMW.  Who knows?  I think it may need to be driven right into my extra garage.  All for the story, ahem.

I wonder where this Book, these stories will take me?

Maybe that’s why we write; to see where our words take us?