It makes it so clear and yet it glimpses into the vast complexities of what we writers endeavour to create. To affect the world around us is a monumental task and yet it is one we take on with fervor and zeal. We shout at the storm of ridicule and Sinicism and forge on ahead; our only real adversary being our doubts and insecurities.

I once heard that writers think themselves gods….and in a way we are. We are gods of our own creations. We need to be sure that like the grand creation that is our world everything is in balance.

I wonder sometimes. What was God thinking about when he created us? The little things that inspire us to create can be as simple as a conversation or a movie. What was it that made God wake up one day and say.

“I think I’ll create man today.”

I’d so love to be ringside with you and the person blinkered enough to tell you this blog is Writing 101. There wouldn’t be anything wrong with it if it were, but the concepts you embrace and distil here go so much deeper than that. Today’s piece is the proof.

I’ve been taking and delivering writing classes for decades. But you, more than any mentor I’ve met in years, make me feel like I’m a writer who’s capable of doing so much more than I’m allowing myself to. You open doors into explorations of how I feel about creativity and writing in a way that inspires me but keeps me grounded in the real world at the same time. Your blog is the bridge between me feeling that my dream of being published is hopeless and a happy ending so close I can taste it.

You’re the only writing coach who has ever made me feel like decades of film and TV drama addiction have built into a treasure trove. Yet again, with this post, you’ve helped me peel back the layers of what it is that stops me going for the novel or screenplay I know I have in me.

This brought tears to my eyes.

Is that person, this being that you have summoned forth as a story, a gift to the universe? A fresh surprise and a source of energy and inspiration? A window into something otherwise unseen?

I know what I long to achieve, and I’m simply not good enough yet. As a parent and a coach, someone who loves Scrooged as much as A Christmas Carol, I long to create a story that will cause even the tiniest of shifts, that will warm hearts, stir souls or find echoes in another’s mind. I long to create something that will feel like a friend on someone’s bookshelf or leave the kind of memories that linger like a lost love.

Sometimes stories are born unexpectedly. Sometimes they’re planned. But they all need nurture, love and structure or they shrivel and die. And they all start with seeds.

Elitist writing sites stifle and stunt. My fourteen year old daughter could give some of them a run for their money when it comes to talking about what makes one film work and another flop. She hasn’t had her freshness and immediacy knocked out of her yet by years of being told what she should think is ‘good’. She can still respond with her instincts, her gut and her emotions, like we instinctively respond to some people. She’d get this post. Explaining the complex simply doesn’t make this Writing 101.

While I acknowledge that we need, must have, the technical aspects of story telling in our stories, they need to be like our own bones, muscles and tendons. They need to stay out of sight. What you talk about here is what needs to show.

Either without the other is useless.

An inviting “person” of a story without the proper structure will be mush – as we would be without our bones and muscles.

A technically correct story with no face or personality has little appeal – as would most of us if we walked about as fleshless muscles and bones.

Your analogy here is wonderful! You speak so often of the support structure that talking about adding the flesh and personality makes it all complete.

I find the drone of technical info on writing begins to crush all the interest in it for me. Even if it is the hardest work I’ve ever done, if it is interesting it is worth it. This blog will help so many of us keep the interest in our writing alive.

Wonderful!
Thank you!

Sandra