Someone asked me recently if I ever get tired of or bored with writing. Well the short answer is no, I don’t.
It’s a passion of mine and over the years I just kept writing and by sheer fluke found my niche as a columnist (humour) and everything else seemed to roll from there. I’m also a feature writer plus I do general news articles for the newspaper where I work as a journalist and I have a weekly column which apprears in same, so I guess when you you think about it the above question made sense to the guy who asked me. I’m always writing!
Except to me it was the same as asking if I ever get tired of breathing! I’m guessing that could mean I live to write and if that’s the case, well, at least I admit it. I do humour mostly but can get serious when I have to and about the only genre I haven’t looked at is romance. Sorry, but I don’t even read it so I’d probably do a lousy job there.
It’s a bit of an obsession with me really and if I have absolutely nothing to write about (a rare experience with writer’s block or some other nasty) I can actually feel a bit shell-shocked! A blank mind means a blank page and it’s a scary thing for someone like me. Fortunately it happens only rarely but it can be the stuff of nightmares, if you know what I mean. Other writers would understand that.
So where do I get all my ideas? Well gosh, I don’t know, they just pop up and before I can say “that would make a good column/article/blog/whatever” I’m on to it and sure enough, it makes a good column/article/blog/whatever and I thank the Universe for the fact that I can put thought into print so easily, especially when I’m at work because hey, that’s why I’m there and I have to work to a deadline so I can’t afford to dally! Newspapers are great levellers for writers in that respect because you have to come up with the goods (which have to be very good) in time for the paper to go to press. It makes you work harder, that’s for sure but it also makes you grow as a writer because you have to be able to write competently in more than one genre. Sometimes that can be a challenge but trust me, it’s good for you.
The thing is this, if you have a yen to write then by all means start doing it! Pick topics that you know a lot about or that you feel passionate about and write the way you speak. You want your writing to flow and a lot of short sentences will not cut it. Think about how you converse with others and write in the same way. Unless of course you punctuate with a lot of profanity. If this is the case you are going to hit a few brick walls as there would be almost nil publications out there who would want to publish you and as for the ones that would…well…do you really want to see your By-line there?
Just write okay! Even if you don’t intend to show it to anyone just yet the practice will help you hone your style and develop a “signature” which means people will recognise your work whether your name appears with it or not. It’s better if your name does appear though, after all it is your work.
I intend to continue writing until the day I wake up dead. After that I’ll try writing across the skies. Has anyone done that yet?