Since I remembered that I wanted to be a writer, it’s been swirling around my mind in one form or another every day.

I want to learn everything I can in order to hone my craft.  I know that many will say you can’t teach good writing, it’s just something that happens.  I don’t know if that’s true (and if it is, I’m ignoring it so as not to become disheartened!)  But over the past several months I have learned a great deal, from books on writing, from blogs, and from writers that are generous enough to share their experiences and their tips.

For a long time I ignored my desire to be a writer because I felt I had no ideas.  I allowed tales of writers who just conjured these amazing best-selling ideas out of nowhere when they were like 3, to flatten me.  If I was supposed to be a writer, I’d be amazing already, right?  I would journal pages and pages each day with enthusiasm, filled with gripping details and poetic descriptions, a la Sylvia Plath.  Ideas would spring forth, waking me at 4am to scribble furiously, or jumping out at me at the supermarket, seemingly out of nowhere.

This wasn’t happening, so maybe I’m not meant to be a writer, said my little voice.  Maybe I should let this one go.

I cannot tell you how glad I am that the voice didn’t win (yet, it still tries).  Because I’m re-discovering my love of words.  I’m fascinated by how other writers put things together, where the ideas come from and, importantly for me right now, how they flesh ideas out into complete stories.  I re-read favourite novels with a fresh, analytical eye.  I see why I love that story so much, how that tension was created, why that detail turns out to be important.

I can create characters.  I can craft a scene.  I’m even ok at dialogue.  At the moment, these things are happening in isolation – but they’re happening.  Then I can apply all that I’m learning and perhaps fill it out, turn that scene into a short story, turn that character into a complete person with a complicated background, use that dialogue as a jumping off point to a thrilling adventure.

I can’t tell you how heartening it is to realise hey, I just had an idea!  And instead of following with, oh, but that’s not a full story, I take heart because, if I let it rattle around in there a little bit, who knows what will happen?