This week: Who ARE You? Edited by: fyn  
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The true alchemists do not change lead into gold; they change the world into words.~~ William H. Gass
There is no real ending. It’s just the place where you stop the story.~~Frank Herbert
Description begins in the writer’s imagination, but should finish in the reader’s.~~Stephen King
No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise in the writer, no surprise in the reader.~~Robert Frost
There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.~~Maya Angelou
Your intuition knows what to write, so get out of the way.~~Ray Bradbury
And by the way, everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.~~Sylvia Plath
Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart.~~William Wadsworth
If you want to write, if you want to create, you must be the most sublime fool that God ever turned out and sent rambling. You must write every single day of your life. You must read dreadful dumb books and glorious books, and let them wrestle in beautiful fights inside your head, vulgar one moment, brilliant the next. You must lurk in libraries and climb the stacks like ladders to sniff books like perfumes and wear books like hats upon your crazy heads.~~Ray Bradbury
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Who are you? (as a writer) What are you? Not quite as easy to answer as it might seem! I'm a writer - it is how I interpret the world around me. It has an effect on pretty much everything I do as I tend to view my world through a 'writer's lens.' I am a poet. I am a novelist. I'm a published author in both old-school traditional methods and independent presses. I'm a playwright and had two of my plays produced albeit WAAAAY off-Broadway. Poetry is my first love, but (more on this later) I've grown into (as a writer) writing novels.
Today, being Tuesday, is my 17th WDC Anniversary. That's a quarter of my life, a third of my adult life. Either way, a very long time! I was asked several times today how my writing has changed in seventeen years or if it has. Absolutely. While I am sure it would have grown without WDC and its myriad influences, the difference, I think, is exponential.
At fifty-one years as compared to now, I was a mere baby writing-wise although I'd been writing my whole life. I'd traveled the world several times, but my world exploded when I joined WDC. I truly didn't have a clue what I didn't know; had yet to learn. I thought I was pretty darned good, but, while not a bad writer, I had so much to learn about our art. Beyond all I'd learned in my degrees, beyond what I'd learned by constantly writing, I still needed to learn so much! And I have and continue to do so.
Going back and reading my efforts as a newbie was an educational experience.
My sheer terror back then of writing dialog shows up as a glaring lack of confidence, experience, and connectedness. Some stuff that I'd rewritten, revised and edited over the years was pretty good, but other things were, hmmm, pretty terrible!
But, along the way, with all the input I'd received from my peers here, I learned. I took blind leaps of faith, I ventured out onto limbs and branches and I learned. What once was mind-numbingly, blank-page-inducing scary now doesn't bother me in the slightest.
I learned about the reams of research necessary to write pieces on subjects in which I had little to no experience in or about. I learned how to take the knowledge gleaned and transcribe it into compelling writing. I have not had a heart transplant, but I can't tell you how many emails I received saying that I'd clearly had one because if I hadn't there was no way I could, let alone would, understand where a heart transplant person was coming from. Ah, but I'm a writer.
We are so much more than mere writers. We learn so much about so many different things that we become part writer, part shrink, part criminal, part detective, etc... We adapt to the mindset of our characters, learn their mantras, their characteristics, their levels of accountability, their morals, and their fears. We are an amalgamation of what we've written about.
I've learned about many types of poetry outside of my comfort zone and how to write them. How some poetic ideas may lend themselves better to one form or another. I've learned to experiment. I've also learned that failing in one way of writing doesn't mean I can't write; it simply means I need to try it a different way, from a different perspective or a different form, like for example, a short story versus a poem or a poem rather than something else.
One of the best things about Writing.Com is that I've learned the plethora of things that are available to be learned. It is flat out amazing how much one can learn while here should one want/desire to do so.
Levels. I write on numerous levels regardless of whether I'm writing poetry or a book. I always did, to an extent, but here, I've learned how to layer meanings upon meanings, to write with depth and not just on the surface. I've learned to really, with intent, play with words and their multiple meanings.
I am always pushing for folks to be more observant of the world around them and using those observations in their work to bring their details to life. Why? Because I've learned the incredible difference they can make in bringing a scene alive. Way beyond what I thought I knew seventeen years ago!
When I joined WDC, way back when, I was in a terrible place/mind space. Newly free of a horrifically abusive relationship, I ran halfway across the country to be as far away from him as I could before I ran out of money. My dog and I landed in a truly awful trailer in a trailer park so far on the 'wrong side of the tracks' that I was totally out of my element. I felt like there was a giant 'X' painted on its roof (I was in Michigan, after all) and why shouldn't a tornado land on me? Everything else already had! I was massively depressed, figuring that everything bad that had happened was all my fault and wasn't good for much of anything. I was so broke that I'd set the heat at fifty degrees which did little to dispel the February winds that howled outside, the brutal cold that left frost on the insides of the windows. I was as miserable as I had ever been.
Keeping the heat that low, eating Ramen noodles, and forgoing cable and a phone, at least I did have the internet. I stumbled across WDC and the lights came on, the trailer warmed up and suddenly the world didn't look as bleak. I made friends I have to this day. I wrote and wrote and wrote. Then I wrote some more. Reviews started coming in. People liked what I wrote. They liked me. I had some redeeming value! Truly, WDC saved my life. It is more than a mere anniversary, more of a rebirth-day! Thank you Writing.Com!!!
So, in the years since, I have evolved as a writer. I'm better than I was and working forward to what I've yet to be. It is exciting!
So who are you as a writer? What does WDC mean to you? Please let me know in the comments!
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a response to a newsletter from last July ...
oldgreywolf scribbles  informs: 1. Hair donation is from cut hair, so no follicles = zero DNA; physical similarity only.
2. Next time you cover _research_, something I learned elsewhere: First evaluate the source (A = Reliable; B = Probably Reliable; C = Probably Not Reliable; D = Unreliable). Then you can evaluate the information (1 = Accurate; 2 = Probably Accurate; 3 = Probably Not Accurate; 4 = Unaccurate). So you want an A1, A2, B1, or B2. Leave the D4s for the wackos. What you stated was a good reminder for experienced researchers who might rush their research. Uncle Sugar's way is slower, but after a while, it becomes habit.
I'm still catching up on emails. Only a half-year behind. Then I'll be able to enjoy them when "fresh".
Good points!!! Thank you. Always useful!
buddhangela's Wounded Not Dead  says: Grand newsletter! What a blessing to have had a grandmother with you to feed and cultivate your mind when you needed it most! Your story is inspiring - thank you for sharing it!
QueenNormaJeanGreeneggs&vegham  writes: I love words. I love using archaic words in conversation. Then watch the faces as they try to figure out what I'm saying.
Me too!
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For Authors: March 02, 2022 Issue [#11240]
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