What? Me? Who?
So, when I decided to become a blogger, the main reason behind it was just to get my writing juice flowing. I did this on the advice of a good friend who has already been signed to an agent and is well on her way. No really, she rocks. Check her out: http://lizczukas.blogspot.com/
I do write for a living. You'd think that would keep my writing "juices" flowing; alas, it does not. It actually kills that creativity in some ways. Currently at work, I'm leading the charge for the "create once, use many" concept that's currently running rampant in our space. Stay with me, I'm getting to my point. Within this movement, the big writing theory is Minimalism. If you can say it with five words, please do not use ten words. As you can see, creative writing and technical writing don't really mesh. Or do they?
I know when I read a book, I get annoyed with flowery prose. Meaning, if you use five adjectives to describe her blue dress, I'm going to get annoyed. However; there is a happy medium. If you use five adjectives to describe her blue dress and the way it's flowing around her body as she walks on the beach on a windy day, I might be ok. (Holy prepositions batman!)That said, I don't think you can apply all of the principals of minimalism to fiction. It'd make for a really boring book; however, you can apply some of the concepts in order to better your writing altogether.
So, what I'm saying here is that I'm having a bit of a writer's identity crisis. I know what I do for a living, and at the risk of sounding like an arrogant jerk, I'm ok at it. When it comes to my personal works, it's actually more difficult. It's hard to put aside the programming, which is my work writing and just let the words flow free and not worry about all of the "rules." Mind you, I'm not daft, I realize that there are writing rules no matter what you write, but it's amazing to me the differences in these rules.
I'm slowly working through that identity crisis, and I've been debating putting some excerpts of my new works on this blog. I'm a newbie, and that terrifies me. I'll get there, maybe, eventually.......
Thanks for the shout-out!
ReplyDeleteAnd you're right, it can be really hard to swing between the two. Back when I was in college (and dinosaurs roamed the earth) I always had to shake off all my academic writing tendencies when I went back to my fiction. But eventually they started to feel like more than just different types of writing--they felt like completely different activities. Like jogging and eating dinner. Totally unrelated. Maybe you'll find that happens for you, too!
- Liz
Of course m'dear....
ReplyDeleteI'm hoping that's what happens for me too, that they become two totally different things. I think eventually they will. As I look at some of what I've written of my personal works, I'm like, hmmmm yeahhhh zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. I'll get there, it's slow.