A Writer's Gotta Write!

[malruniel11]

The most important piece of advise I ever got about writing was that if I was going to be a writer, then I have to write.  As simple as that sounds, any of you who do write know very well how hard that is.  We need time, inspiration, a decent project, the right mood, the right atmosphere.  We writers are pretty fussy, but the biggest two are time

Comments

Good question.

[ellakite]

So, what is it that gets you writing?

I'm going to be absolutely honest with you: I don't have a friggin' clue. All I can tell you is that it's a struggle.

Mind you, I'm a story-teller by nature, but with an emphasis on the word teller. I've been coming up with story ideas and telling them to family and friends since I was a young boy, but I *GREATLY* prefer telling my tales orally to writing them down. I always find the writing process to be a chore at best... and an outright nightmare at worst. Plus, if I write longhand I get horrific cramps within a few minutes... and all my attempts to learn how to touch-type have failed horribly. Never mind how much I start second-guessing myself, and literally spend 30 minutes reworking the same sentences over and over...

And before you suggest I purchase some "voice-transcription" software, I've already tried that. It doesn't matter how often I "train" the thing to recognize my voice; the error rate is so high I've always had to go back and proof my own work, editing as I go... and I've been left with the impression that it's actually faster for me to just type my tales out in full. (I've tried several microphones, and had the same problem with each.)

So what gets me writing? Honestly, it's the fear that if I don't write *SOMETHING* I'll stop writing altogether. There have been several times when I've written absolutely nothing in my LJ for months... and there was one 12 month period when I wrote exactly two short posts, and nothing else.

Sometimes I wonder why I bother writing. Sometimes I wonder if I *SHOULD* bother.

I know this probably is not the kind of answer you wanted to hear, and I'm sure this is not the kind of answer you were expecting... but I'm being as honest as I can here.

Re: Good question.

[malruniel11]

Hey, any answer that is honest is the right answer to give. It doesn't matter what makes you write or how you write, just that you do. Too bad you don't have a friend who is a transcriptionist. Software is buggy and you have to speak a specific way for it to understand you clearly, and then you still have to go through and double check.

You tell some pretty good stories, so I'll encourage you to keep writing! It's not always easy (in fact it rarely is, as you well know), but it's important to stretch that part of you. If you don't, it atrophies and is wasted.

[ellakite]

For the record: I'm a programmer by trade, and normally I'm rather good at adapting to a piece of software's strengths and limitations. But when it comes to voice-transcription software... not so much.

I appreciate the positive feedback -- despite how well I did in RLJI last year, I still have difficulty judging the quality of my own work.

[malruniel11]

Most people struggle with that. The stuff I think is crappy tends to be what people love, and what I adore of my own work tends to go over like a lead balloon. C'est la vie.

Your work is typically quite enjoyable. I'm a crap commenter lately, but still, it's good work.

The funny part about the discussion of transcription is that just earlier today I was asked to transcribe and edit a book for a former friend. How odd.