On writing (and not knowing how to get there)

Now that I’ve written quite a few entries, I feel it’s time to explain where I’m going with this blog. Wait, scratch that. Writing, as with most pursuits, is about the journey, not the destination. Besides, I haven’t even a clue where I’ll end up. Having no idea where you’re going, but going despite the fact, is the very essence of writing.

For those of you who don’t write beyond blog posts or papers for work or school, you should know that most writers don’t actually come up with everything they put down on paper. Stories aren’t thought into being, but rather they are revealed. Revealed from where I doubt anyone knows, but just about any serious writer will tell you that they just write down what they’re told. Fighting against this and attempting to write only that which you have created results in pretty crappy writing, and gives your story the flair of a final paper written for a class that bores the living hell out of you.

My friend Sandman Moon puts it so well that to phrase it any other way would diminish its meaning: “I cannot live without writing because writing is the one and only thing that frees something blind and hard-packed at the core of my being.”