I recently read a couple of books.
I know, this shouldn’t be a particularly unexpected occurrence. We all know that reading is one of the major activities all writers should engage in. It’s at the top of pretty much all those ‘what you need to do to be a successful writer’ lists put out by a bunch of famous writers, as well as not-so-famous writers who hope one day to be famous writers.
Well it’s not a particularly original sentiment – it’s one that numerous others have already expressed. But this is my blog where I get to say what I want, regardless of how many times it’s already been said. So here it is. I’m going to say it.
Well, would you believe it? We’ve finally arrived at the last day of 2020. What a journey. At times, it was hard to believe we’d actually get here. And the sad thing is lots of people around the world didn’t get here.
At the end of any year, I like to post a bit of a reflection on what has just passed – to talk a bit about how I’ve managed, and how I’ve gone with meeting the goals I set myself at the start of the year.
One of the most vexed topics to consider when looking at the art of creating a story is where to start. At what point do you start to conceive the idea of what your story is about?
The most obvious point would seem to be the beginning. That makes complete sense, doesn’t it? I mean, a conventional story has a beginning and a middle and an end, so why wouldn’t you want to start at the beginning?
Well, judging from my experience, there are a lot of reasons why you might not start at the beginning. Because I’ve written stories where the initial inspiration has come from pretty much every point in the narrative arc.
Today, the subject of my post is going to be insecurity.
How good is insecurity? Well, to be honest it’s kind of crap. But it’s kind of crap in a good way, at least when you’re a writer. Or maybe I should rephrase that. It’s kind of good in a crap way.
Okay, give me a few minutes and I’ll see if I can sort it out.
