Attempts at Writing
My first attempts at writing were in school when they were assigned by teachers. When I was in college, they were again assigned, but I began to allow my imagination to add color to the project and I enjoyed it. I was always faulty with my punctuation, but for the most part my grammar and spelling was on point. Later, I began to write poetry, some of it wasn’t as good as it could have been because I focused on syllable count and rhyming. I have reams of rhyming poetry and pages of self-taught Haiku.
The first attempt to write a “real” story was a challenge from others at a writers meeting. The group was challenged to write a detective story to be included in a fundraising collection book, I had never considered writing a detective story, but dutifully copied the information, That night as I tried to sleep, I kept waking and jotted down ideas all through the night on my ever-near pencil and pad. By morning, I had the entire storyline in front of me. With some polish and red herring additions, it was finished. I’ve never had a similar experience, but the character of Tommy Two-shoes was born and was the central figure of my next four books. In my mind he was built similar to William Bendix, a solid man wearing brogan shoes. A retired Pittsburgh homicide detective, he was a man who’s seen and done a lot, allowing him to share what he’d done and seen.
Occasionally, I reread those books to see what I could have done better, find errors, or thinking of other ways the plots could have gone. I’m still writing, but at a less furious pace. I’ve gotten sidetracked with other things. I have too many irons in the fire and am often lax on the time I allot myself to write. It could be that I am getting older and am less likely to push myself. Perhaps I need someone else to push me or at least to loan me a cane.
Perhaps the ideas for another plot or character haven’t appeared in the cobwebs of my mind, but I know the creative spark hasn’t gone out completely. I am trying to write another fictional story of a trapper and his dog, but the storyline wanders too much. I will try to find and end of the tale, then go back through weeding out the extraneous lines and subplots. Time will tell.
I do have a Blog and write a posting every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. I often struggle to find something to different to share and that sucks out some of my creative juices.