I had actually forgotten about NaBloPoMo until I read Tiffany’s latest entry, and I thought about how I don’t write here often enough, and this might just make me get back into the groove. I’ve often participated in things like this for that very purpose, and it usually doesn’t work, but what the hell.
Today’s prompt is to describe what you love most about writing.
I discovered two things about myself at the age of nine that became very important – namely, that I love to read and I love to write. This was when I was in grade 3, and Ms. Nurse, our English teacher, read to us books such as “Charlotte’s Web” and “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” (or was the latter read to us in grade 4? We had Ms. Nurse for both years, so I get it mixed up, but it doesn’t really matter). She also had us write stories in these small composition books that had a large block of space above each lined section for drawings. I sucked at the drawing part, something that continued through the ensuing years, but I found that I absolutely loved coming up with stories. I even incorporated chapters, complete with cliffhanger endings.
I enjoy writing here, but my true love of writing is in the form of fiction. And what I love most about writing is the same thing that I love about reading – the ability to lose myself in a story. Even when your life is fantastic, you need to have some form of escape, whether that come about in the form of a good book you’re reading, or a writing project you’ve started, or a favourite television show, or even going for a walk in the woods. I consider myself fortunate that I can find such escape in all of those ways.
I don’t have the same time to write as I used to, and in some ways, that makes me sad. But the reasons I don’t have much time for it are all good. I’m married to a wonderful man and we have a beautiful daughter I absolutely adore, so of course I want to spend time with them. Writing is a loner activity, so it gets pushed to the back burner. Sometimes I thought that I should just give up on writing because I kept thinking about how a common piece of advice to writers is to write everyday, and it just wasn’t happening for me anymore. I realized that I can’t give up on writing, because it’s just part of who I am, and I have decided to let go of that piece of advice. I try to write as much as possible, but when it doesn’t happen, it doesn’t happen. I’m working on a project now, and I try to work on it whenever Claire has a nap. But there is no deadline; if it takes me ten years to write it, then so be it. What matters most is that I continue to love it.
