Saturday, December 31, 2011

A New Year! Let the Endings and Beginnings Meet

A time where endings and beginnings meet.
Seems like a good time to initiate my blog.

Welcome to Marjorie’s pages. I hope you will enjoy your visit and that you’ll stop in often. My intention is to showcase guest authors, talk about the writer’s life, discuss elements of craft, and in general, have a good time. If there are particular topics you’d like me to address, let me know and I’ll see what I can do.

Like starting a novel, this blog begins as a blank page. I know what I would like to accomplish: connect with readers, show them a piece of who I am, validate who they are. But the story, i.e., the direction this blog will take, is not yet formed. I have only a vague idea about how it will take shape. I know for example, that in social situations, I struggle with chit-chat. Yet talking intimately one-on-one is a rewarding experience. Maybe that is how I should structure this blog, as an intimate talk between friends. I like that idea. I wouldn’t have known that if I hadn’t begun to write this. So, here is the lesson I share with you today. If you want to write fiction, get out your computer, your alpha-smart, your pen and paper and begin writing.

My personal story. I always wanted to write a novel. I wrote poetry, and in high school, a novella. When I confessed my desire to my friend, Cornelia Childs Beach, she asked me why I hadn’t written that novel. I told her I didn’t know what I wanted to say. Cornelia suggested I just start writing. “You’ll find out soon enough,” she said. Well, I did, and I did. As the characters began to develop and take shape, they guided me through their story. Oh, I know that many writers know exactly where they want to go and what they want to write before they begin. That’s great for them. (In more recent works, I have the story idea, the ending, the conflict, or some other element that I want to write about before beginning. But back then, I thought I needed to have to whole thing planned out before I could start.)

What I want to encourage you to do today, is BEGIN. Don’t wait. And it doesn’t have to be writing that you are preventing yourself from doing. Whatever ambition you have, as Nike says, Just do it. If it is writing, sure you’ll need to learn about plotting, structure, characterization and other craft elements, but you don’t have to wait until all that is in place before you begin. Evelyn Rogers, a writing colleague of mine, has a saying that I’ve posted on my computer, “If you don’t know what to write, make something up.”

It’s the start of a new year. You have dreams you want to accomplish. What better time to begin?

Speak with you soon,
Marjorie