Don't Box Yourself In
I'm a journalist at heart. I didn't know it until college, but I wanted to be a reporter. I'd always been a writer, tapping away stories on my mom's typewriter (Yes, typewriter. I know. That ages me.) But I didn't realize until after a writing class my freshman year in college that journalism was my thing. I got my degree in it and interned for various magazines and newspapers my senior year and for a few years after graduation.
When I had my first child, I wanted to be home full-time. This was when the fiction writing kicked into gear. Flash forward almost twenty years later and here I am. Writing novels. Doing my thing.
But sometimes I miss other kinds of writing.
For this reason, I started blogging. I have two blogs to be exact. A Writing Life (this blog) where I talk about, well, writing. And The Almost Empty Nester where I pour out my thoughts and feelings about these years where my little ones are flying from the nest and how I'm dealing (or sometimes not dealing) with it.
I've learned over time to not box myself in. There's more than one kind of writing out there.
One thing I love about this writing life is that I can work on anything. Non-fiction, fiction, articles, blogs, devotionals... You name it. The possibilities are endless. Yes, my novels take up a majority of my time right now, including the marketing and crazy that goes along with it.
But I'm a writer. I write. And not just one thing.
Why?
1) It keeps my writing sharp.
- I have to strap on a whole different writing hat to write my blogs than when I am working on a novel. It's a different kind of language in some ways. There's a different audience for each, but not only that, I'm a different writer for each.
2) I'm sharing a different part of myself in each type of writing.
- When I work on a novel, I'm daydreaming. I'm brainstorming people, places, situations. Basically, I'm making stuff up. When I'm blogging, I'm writing from the heart, from my experiences in the hopes that it encourages someone out there who's going through the same thing. And when I write an article (journalistic writing I like to call it) I'm interviewing people, weaving together their story that shares information about a topic or situation.
3) It keeps my writing fresh.
- If I plow away at only one type of writing, my brain gets stagnant. It gets stuck in one place. I can end up writing the same crap, different cover. I don't want to read that so I most certainly don't want to write it.
What types of writing are your favorites?
When I had my first child, I wanted to be home full-time. This was when the fiction writing kicked into gear. Flash forward almost twenty years later and here I am. Writing novels. Doing my thing.
But sometimes I miss other kinds of writing.
For this reason, I started blogging. I have two blogs to be exact. A Writing Life (this blog) where I talk about, well, writing. And The Almost Empty Nester where I pour out my thoughts and feelings about these years where my little ones are flying from the nest and how I'm dealing (or sometimes not dealing) with it.
I've learned over time to not box myself in. There's more than one kind of writing out there.
One thing I love about this writing life is that I can work on anything. Non-fiction, fiction, articles, blogs, devotionals... You name it. The possibilities are endless. Yes, my novels take up a majority of my time right now, including the marketing and crazy that goes along with it.
But I'm a writer. I write. And not just one thing.
Why?
1) It keeps my writing sharp.
- I have to strap on a whole different writing hat to write my blogs than when I am working on a novel. It's a different kind of language in some ways. There's a different audience for each, but not only that, I'm a different writer for each.
2) I'm sharing a different part of myself in each type of writing.
- When I work on a novel, I'm daydreaming. I'm brainstorming people, places, situations. Basically, I'm making stuff up. When I'm blogging, I'm writing from the heart, from my experiences in the hopes that it encourages someone out there who's going through the same thing. And when I write an article (journalistic writing I like to call it) I'm interviewing people, weaving together their story that shares information about a topic or situation.
3) It keeps my writing fresh.
- If I plow away at only one type of writing, my brain gets stagnant. It gets stuck in one place. I can end up writing the same crap, different cover. I don't want to read that so I most certainly don't want to write it.
What types of writing are your favorites?
No comments have been added yet.
