This isn't anything as major as a sale or completing another novel, but it feels like a small accomplishment nonetheless. I thought I'd share it with you guys, the people who would most understand the way I'm feeling right now. 
As I mentioned before in my introduction thread, the siren call of writing hit me early. (I can still remember my first 'published' piece -- a descriptive essay about my third-grade teacher that appeared in the school's quarterly newsletter.) Woven through the productive years -- when both pen and typewriter (and later on, the computer) were my bosom friends and I could dash off a short story in one long session -- are ones where the landscape of my writing life displayed nothing more than deep snow drifts and frozen vegetation, the stories within me silenced and hiding deep in the caverns of my mind. There they huddled, waiting and watching for even the tiniest flicker of light, for five long years of winter.
(During that time I still wrote, but the fruits of my craft were only non-fiction articles for my job. I worked at a publishing house that printed English-language lifestyle magazines in Bangkok, under a boss who was wonderful in every aspect except for the fact that he kept pushing for a cooler, hipper tone to each submitted article. After yet another time when he wanted me to write an article that was "hip, cool, and in your face," I briefly wondered if I was going to have to drop words like fo' shizzle into the piece to satisfy his urge to be the next cool thang.)
The long winter ended a few months months ago, when I broke through the ice and began to write fiction again. Spring came, warmth and light with it. Winter, however, wasn't yet completely gone -- blizzards came howling through from time to time. Nevertheless, I hobbled along, writing a bit of this and a bit of that, piecing together my thoughts, various story arcs, and character studies. A few weeks ago, I began a bit of worldbuilding for an epic fantasy story that I had in mind. Today, fragments of various fantasy stories, themes, and elements that have been running around in my head for the past two years suddenly clicked, coalescing into an overall story arc that has me completely excited.
I've finally hit that place where I've left my self-doubts behind, where I'm not agonizing over every word, every detail, and every paragraph. I've finally gentled my internal editor enough to let myself relax and actually feel pleasure again in the act of writing.
It's been a long time coming, but winter has truly ended. Spring is definitely here.
As I mentioned before in my introduction thread, the siren call of writing hit me early. (I can still remember my first 'published' piece -- a descriptive essay about my third-grade teacher that appeared in the school's quarterly newsletter.) Woven through the productive years -- when both pen and typewriter (and later on, the computer) were my bosom friends and I could dash off a short story in one long session -- are ones where the landscape of my writing life displayed nothing more than deep snow drifts and frozen vegetation, the stories within me silenced and hiding deep in the caverns of my mind. There they huddled, waiting and watching for even the tiniest flicker of light, for five long years of winter.
(During that time I still wrote, but the fruits of my craft were only non-fiction articles for my job. I worked at a publishing house that printed English-language lifestyle magazines in Bangkok, under a boss who was wonderful in every aspect except for the fact that he kept pushing for a cooler, hipper tone to each submitted article. After yet another time when he wanted me to write an article that was "hip, cool, and in your face," I briefly wondered if I was going to have to drop words like fo' shizzle into the piece to satisfy his urge to be the next cool thang.)
The long winter ended a few months months ago, when I broke through the ice and began to write fiction again. Spring came, warmth and light with it. Winter, however, wasn't yet completely gone -- blizzards came howling through from time to time. Nevertheless, I hobbled along, writing a bit of this and a bit of that, piecing together my thoughts, various story arcs, and character studies. A few weeks ago, I began a bit of worldbuilding for an epic fantasy story that I had in mind. Today, fragments of various fantasy stories, themes, and elements that have been running around in my head for the past two years suddenly clicked, coalescing into an overall story arc that has me completely excited.
I've finally hit that place where I've left my self-doubts behind, where I'm not agonizing over every word, every detail, and every paragraph. I've finally gentled my internal editor enough to let myself relax and actually feel pleasure again in the act of writing.
It's been a long time coming, but winter has truly ended. Spring is definitely here.
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