In Which Good Writing Avoids a Proper Definition... Again.

Somewhere, deep down, it feels like none of us really know what we are doing until it's done and all we have to show for our process is the endgame.  I think we do actually know what we are doing, but sometimes it feels like what we think we should do and what we actually should do are completely different.  It's not like a writer sits down to try and make a masterpiece and can't even remember how to spell the first word.  But some days it feels a little like that.   Good writing captures the reader and makes them feel something.  It's a spark between audience and reader that lets the author share themselves with whoever is listening.  And the reader gets to fall into feeling something new.  Good writing is a challenge to itself - great writing?  That's something else entirely.  I'm still figuring that one out.  But good is good enough for now.

I can't even remember when my writing life began.  Growing up reading was a competition.  Who could read the most - who remembered the most - who loved it the most.  I was never quite in first place, but I was always near the top of the list, devouring whatever I could get my hands on.  Books with no pictures?  Give me more.  Reading level?  As if I cared.  Eventually, once in a while, a book I loved left me wanting to write a new ending or write a song (most of which just turned out to be really bad poems but it was fine.)  One day, it just morphed.  One day, the stories I had told myself seemed as exciting as the books in the library, so I would set down my books for a while and starting creating.

Sometimes reading and writing feel the same.  On days when winging it feels like the proper framework for a story, sitting down at my desk, it's like I am reading to myself, telling the story in someone else's words, like a choose your own adventure book except without any pages wasted on the middles and ends you aren't planning on exploring.  Studying creative writing in college seemed to be the natural progression.  

I don't understand the idea of studying something you don't love.  Maybe that's just me, but I couldn't do it.  Writing, and reading, was always what I loved most.  It makes me the happiest most days.  Some days, maybe it's just an escape.  But others?  It feels like I'm seeing the world in a way I can deal with, a way I can appreciate, so I want to portray it better and explore it.  And maybe someone will read something of mine, point at a line or two and say "I get it.  I feel that way too."  Most days that's a good enough reason to stick with it.