Water

I have an 11 year old sister who asked me to go with her and her friend to a pond near our house to swim. Although I was tired, I agreed. The weather was getting a little chilly, so instead of swimming with them, I sat on the bench on the shore. The little beach, though public property, is unnamed and secluded; only people who live in our neighborhood even know of it's existence.

Bored, I watched a frog that jumped around in the water, and was suddenly inspired to write. I had no paper, of course, since I hadn't planned on writing, but we were alone, so I pulled out my cell phone and turned on the voice recorder.

I spent the next hour telling the next scenes in my book to my phone, and watching my sister, bunches of fishies, a few frogs, and a turtle.

Water does this for me. I do my best thinking in or near water. I can't tell you the number of plot-holes I've filled while washing dishes. I can't explain how many ideas I've gotten while in the shower. The writing I do when sitting on the shore or listening to the rain is better than any other writing I have.

I think I'm going to start going to the pond more (also, I need to find the headphones that go with my phone, so that if I need to record things again, No one else has to listen to me tell a story, and retell it, and correct myself, etc)

On a slightly different note, I am now going to start closing ALL my posts with a word count of whatever it is that I've been working on lately.

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The Right to Write

Okay, you caught me. This is just a rant. A rant about writing, but still just a rant.

Several years ago I wrote a story, a piece of flash fiction, which I now call The Human Cycle. Only one person besides myself has read it. I posted it online for two hours one night, but I took it down soon after, before it got any hits.

If you ask me, it's the best thing I've ever written. I have never been prouder of anything. I love that story. It's only 926 words, but it took my 8 months to write.

So who is that one person who saw it? And why wouldn't I show anyone else?

The person who read it was a friend of mine. She had watched me labor over it for months, but hadn't read it. When I finally finished it, I printed out a copy and handed it over.

She read it, looked me in the eye and said "Have you ever heard the phrase 'write what you know?' How do you know what it's like to be in the delivery room. You have no right to write this." She shrugged, like it was no big deal, and then tore the two page story down the middle.

She was right. The opening scene was about a woman giving birth. It's a short paragraph, but very emotional none-the-less. I have never given birth, and I have never been in the room when someone else gave birth. I have no personal experience with it. Maybe that did make me unqualified. I am now afraid to show it to people.

I have been told probably hundreds of times that my writing wasn't good enough. It's been implied even more than that. But none of that ever bothered me more than necessary. I can handle being told that I suck. I can't handle being told that I'm not "allowed" to write things.

I know better now. I know that I have the right to write whatever I want, but now I can't bring myself to let people see The Human Cycle. It's become too private.

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