Progress: Baby Steps
Writing Prompt: Apply Yourself
Taking a break from some of the fiction and poetry of the last couple weeks and doing more of a blog-style post today, to reflect the prompt, which states “Write about the last time you tried to learn something that did not come easy to you.” I’m using this prompt to reflect on my progress for my New Year’s resolution - to reignite my spark for creative writing. I’m 19 days into my goal of following a writing prompt for each day of January. But my journey is just beginning.
When I was in grade school, our grades for writing were based on a scale of four levels; Novice, Apprentice, Proficient, Distinguished. I don’t remember if those corresponded to letter grades, but in my mind, I thought of them as Bad, Okay, Good, and Great. I don’t remember ever getting lower than a Distinguished rating from any of my teachers, at any age. It’s probably because I was always such a prolific reader, and as I mentioned in my first post, creative writing was also somewhat of a hobby.
Because of my consistent excellent remarks, I never thought about my writing as something I needed to improve. My first drafts were often my completed assignments, with little to no revision needed. I was head and shoulders above most of my peers, and when you feel you’re at the top of the ladder, it doesn’t feel like you have anywhere to go. If my teachers gave me any comments other than compliments, it was usually minor grammatical mistakes. [Foreshadowing: “Pride comes before the fall.”]
Even now, when I write a blog post or share my creative writing, the people who read the posts often tell me what a talented writer I am. It doesn’t help that my most avid readers are my husband and my mom. (Love you both 😘)
I feel the bar for comparison is low here. When I’m told I’m a great writer, I think people are comparing my writing to how they might write, or how the average person might write. But being above average doesn’t mean greatness. If the pool of peers for comparison were, say, “published authors” instead of “friends and acquaintances,” then my feedback would be less exceptional.
Why worry about comparing myself to the greats? Because as I mentioned in my introductory post, my dream as a child was to be an author. It’s a dream that sat on the back burner for so long, I forgot it was there for many years. But it has never gone away. As I’ve remembered “Oh hey, I still really love writing”, that childhood dream of mine has come back to the forefront. I would like to write a novel someday - a novel people will want to read. In order to write a book people will want to read, I need to not just be a talented writer among my peers, I need to be a talented writer among writers.
Simply following a writing prompt every day will not get me there. Yes, practice makes perfect. But knowing what to practice is key. I can’t shoot hoops in the driveway every day and expect to be a skilled basketball player. I might be great at making shots, but that doesn’t mean I know how to play the game. Acknowledging my lack of knowledge has been a good humbling first step this month. As the writing prompt indicated, I’m writing about learning something that did not come easy. What I learned is this: just because I can write my thoughts and ideas down with some competency doesn’t mean I know how to tell compelling stories with satisfying endings.
As such, I have moved from step one (admit you have a problem) to step two (do something about it). Lucky for me, we live in the age of information. There are hundreds of podcasts, YouTube channels, websites, and books about writing. I’ve spent much of my free time this month diving in.
Here’s a list of some of my favorite resources so far:
Jane Friedman’s website: She’s a publishing industry expert, and her blog is a treasure trove of incredible advice.
Writing Science Fiction and Fantasy Lecture Series: This is a full-on university creative writing class taught by Brandon Sanderson at BYU. Sanderson is himself a famous fantasy/sci-fi author, and his lectures are insightful and entertaining. He put each lecture from the entire semester on YouTube. I don’t know how or why BYU let him do that, but I’m essentially auditing an entire college class for free. Thanks YouTube!
Dan Harmon’s Story Circle (a.k.a. the Plot Embryo): This is a plot structure device, like the Three Act plot or Freytag’s Pyramid you might remember from high school English class. The Plot Embryo makes more sense to me than those ever did. Dan Harmon (creator of Rick & Morty) basically simplified Joseph Campbell’s prescriptive Hero’s Journey (the “Monomyth”) into an eight-step device that can apply to almost any story. It’s genius, and I am going to spend a lot of time trying to understand all of its implications, and how I can use it to improve my stories. (I made the diagram below because I couldn’t find one online that was as pretty or descriptive as I wanted.)
I have listened to several other great podcast episodes and ordered a few books, but I haven’t had as much time to delve into those because I am attending “YouTube University” this month, and I don’t want to endorse any of them without further review. Next time I post about my writing journey, I will give additional resources.
So, that’s a long-winded progress update on my New Year’s resolution. My short-term goal of completing a writing prompt every day of January is nearly 2/3 done, and I’m excited for where this reignited passion will take me in the months to come.
