As I said at the end of my previous blog post regarding creative writing, “I was sure  of one thing: I was going to apply myself and see where it might lead”.

Actually, I can’t look back and call it creative writing, since I had totally ripped off a Godzilla movie and scribbled out three ages of mayhem in order to score an A. But I certainly loved the attention, and got me to thinking that maybe, since this writing stuff came easy to me and I got positive attention (ego strokes!) when I did it well, maybe I should really try to come up with something original.

As many young amateur writers do, I wrote what I knew. That meant that since I spent all my time watching Dracula, the Werewolf, the Mummy, et al., I started writing out (in longhand!) story after story after story. Naturally, they were not good, as I simply lifted characters (copyrighted characters at that!) from the movies I watched, and plunked them down into settings created by my own imagination.

Since I had not developed a voice as a writer, my stories simply mimicked the writers I was reading at the time. Most writers start this way; it is all part of that growing process of a writer finding his or her path on the road to being able to see what others see, but be able to take away something different from the norm and then relate that to others in a unique and interesting way.

So in the evenings, on weekend, and on school holidays, I put pen to paper and wrote. And I wrote and wrote and wrote. Then I’d take a break, play with my friends, watch a scary movie, etc., then I went back and wrote some more. And some more.

You get the idea.

Writers WRITE.

Artists learn their craft, flex and develop their artistic muscles, and sharpen and hone their skills and instincts by actually DOING what it is they want to do. Certainly, students of any art can and must learn the fundamentals through organized classes. Teachers become mentors. For me as a would-be writer, that meant English Comp. A lot of it, all through Elementary, Junior High (Middle School) and High School.

But mostly, it meant WRITING. Putting the seat of my pants to the seat of the chair, staring at a blank page, and getting the ideas flowing from my mind, through my hand and pen, onto the paper, with only my eyes to guide me. Sometimes it took me days to finish a story. After all, I as just a kid. I had chores, homework, playtime with pals, and a short attention span. When I had finished, I would edit. This was editing at its most primitive: using a red ink pen to make notations about spelling and grammar. Scratching out words, phrases, even sometimes entire sentences and paragraphs. They sounded good when I wrote them, but did not pass muster in the cold glaring light of an editor’s eye. And then, I would rewrite the story again, incorporating my notes and revisions into the new draft.

A funny thing happened as a I spent the ensuing months performing this ritual. My writing actually started to get better. My characters became less stilted. Dialogue became properly punctuated. The prose lost its rough edges, and smoothed out like rough wood under the gentle rubbing of sandpaper. Of course, I had started at the very bottom, so I had nowhere to go but up, right? But the point is, I did improve as I gained experience and found my “groove”.

When I had the story written and rewritten (and rewritten again!) the way I wanted it, what did I do? I paper-clipped and tucked the slightly curled pages of wide-ruled notebook paper that contained my story into the deep bottom drawer on my desk.

I knew I would be starting a new story the next day.