Falling in love with writing again

This month we’re exploring the topic of love, which is something that feels totally appropriate considering that I’m loving my current work-in-progress. 

But what does that mean? 

 

Not that the words are just coming. 

 

Not that my characters are telling me the story and that each chapter is just falling into place. 

 

It doesn’t mean I don’t have days where I want to start anew and/or abandon the project altogether. Nor does it mean that I’m not paining over every word and phrase; that I’m not considering and reconsidering each plot strand and detail and how they ultimately work into the overall themes.

 

What it means is that I’ve come to a place in my career where I’m writing for myself again. I haven’t shared this work with anyone. It’s totally mine, where I can make mistakes and try things out as I get closer to where the work needs to be. There’s no one telling me the work is too overdone, or too edgy, or not edgy enough, or too unrelatable, or too young, or too old, or that I should make my character(s) more “x” and/or less “y.”

 

There’s just me at my computer, figuring things out, fixing them along the way, deepening my understanding of the characters and their journey.

 

Writing under contract is wonderful in so many ways. It’s job security, and continuity, and the confidence in knowing that a team of people are invested in your product. But it can also put a lot of pressure on the writer to produce an approved product for said team, guessing and trying to predict what others want in that moment/on that given day. And, in so many ways, that idea makes so much sense. As writers, we’re writing for clients. But, as a writer, I’m also a creative, and I often need to have creative license to figure things out along the way. The vision I promise in the beginning of a project, before it’s written, may not be the end result – and that’s hard for both sides. 

 

Do I want a product at the end of my process that will sell well? Yes, absolutely. But that takes time and my messy process of trial and error, deepening my understanding of the psychology of my characters and their actions. I love that process. It’s how I wrote my first novel, Blue is for Nightmares. I also wrote Bleed and Jane Anonymous that way. All of those have been my most rewarding writing experiences. 

 

So, now I’m writing this one the same way – messy and imperfect – but also a labor of love.