The Problem with Writing

Originally a blog post, now a static item -- wanted an easier way to share it.

The Struggle of Writing Something New and Sticking With It

I don’t know what to write about. I love writing, but can never stick with an idea for longer than about three hundred words. Also, my sentences tend to get out of hand. I try to keep them short, yet they spiral rapidly out of control. I’ve taught myself grammar and the elements of storytelling, but putting them together with an idea for a story is proving to be quite difficult. I find my attention span for a single narrative isn’t great. As soon as I take a break from writing to get a coffee or a snack, I get a couple of new ideas and want to write them instead. I jump ship, start writing again, take another break, jump ship all over again, and so on. My problem isn’t coming up with ideas, it’s sticking with one idea without losing interest and getting bored.

I find that writing my thoughts down each day is much easier than writing a story. But I really want to write a story. Nobody wants to hear someone’s random thoughts. It’s a useful writing experience for me, but it doesn’t move me closer to my goal of one day creating a story and having it published. In the meantime, I suppose I’ll keep writing out my thoughts in a stream-of-consciousness-like manner, hoping that it’ll kick up an idea from the sea-bed of my mind — one that sticks.

If people have been telling stories for tens of thousands of years, is there anything left to make up? When you study storytelling, you learn about the ways in which stories are told, and there are a finite number of ways to tell a story: the hero’s journey, rags to riches, the seven-point plot structure, and so on. Then there’s genre — fantasy, sci-fi, westerns, and so on. These are all well-established genres, and when using them, you’re expected to stay within the confines of how they’ve been used in the past. Are there any new genres? Surely there have to be. Surely there have to be new ways of storytelling, too. How do you even create a genre? That’s what I want to know. Will there be any new ones in the future?

I think the struggle is coming up with an idea that isn’t just a rehash of something that’s already been done a thousand times before. How do you come up with something fresh and alive — full of life and excitement and newness?

I don’t have the advantage of having read a particular genre of fiction for years and years and years. Most successful writers seem to have done that. My favourite authors range from Hemingway, Brautigan, and Vonnegut, to Tolkien, Pratchett, Wynne Jones, and Wodehouse, to Murakami… and so on.

The problem might be that I came to writing quite late. I didn’t read much growing up, just the usual stuff. I mostly read Garfield comics — and even then I mostly just looked at the pictures. Back then I wanted to be a cartoonist. I made a comic book about a lazy cat out of paper and stapled it together. I guess that’s when the rehashing of existing ideas began for me. It wasn’t until my late twenties that I started reading seriously. I’ve always loved language and been in awe of those who can use it skilfully, and when I was around twenty-seven, I began reading ferociously. I can’t remember why. And, like with everything else I do, it didn’t take long before I thought, “I want to do this myself.” And voilà — my desire to be a writer began. Only this time — unlike with everything else I do — it stuck.

Sometimes, I think I just like putting one word in front of another. Do I just enjoy the act of writing sentences? It’s quite therapeutic, to be fair. But what am I supposed to do with that? It’s like enjoying playing up and down scales on a musical instrument without ever making music.

I’ve learnt that you can’t come up with ideas — they are given to you. They float down from the mysterious land of ideas, somewhere up above, and say, “Hey, wouldn’t this be cool?” I guess all you can do is practice writing, find a voice, and wait.

Calling on The Universe… please plop an idea into my head. Would really appreciate it. Thanks.

Maybe this is The Universe plopping ideas into my head. The words are falling onto the page rather nicely.