G. Thomas Hedlund's Blog

A Writing Life

2009-06-03T17:51:00.001-07:00

The mornings sneak in with impatient jabbing at my eyelids. I turn over and clench them tight, but the damage is done. I'm awake. Time to go to work.

I stare up at the ceiling. The shadows remind me of moments in a story I'm working on. Sometimes they make me smile, while other times I'm afraid to crawl out of bed. But crawl I must.

I wish I could stay home. There's so much work to do. There's always so much work. A novel to write, a screenplay to rewrite, a short story to edit, submissions to make, proposals to write, reading, reading, reading. But this isn't a choice yet. I still pay my bills with a job that has nothing to do with writing. As I earn my MFA, I know this will all change, one way or another. Slowly, one step at a time (how's that for a cliche), I'm getting there.

I'll get home just before the sun sets and I'll be able to work. The trouble I have most of the time is figuring out which project to tackle first. I got so overwhelmed with classwork and keeping my head above the raging waters, that I let the creativity muscle slip. Finally I'm writing fresh, new stories. It's invigorating but at the same time it requires patience and diligence. Every muscle learns and this one is no different. Writing every day is the only way to succeed. Writing and reading.

On my way. Talk soon.

Writing the Bones

2009-06-03T17:49:00.000-07:00

What is a story? This is the question every writer should consider before setting pen to paper, or fingers to keys. A story has a purpose, it has reason. Or it should. Stories are tales of life, of hope, of lessons learn and those yet to be learned. Some have morals, some are entertaining, and some educational. They can be all of these or none, but what they shouldn't be is about nothing.

Once you have that glint of an idea in your mind and decide you want to write it down, to pass it on to others, to share with your best friend or the world, make sure you know what the purpose of your story is. What's its theme? What are you trying to say. If you don't know or think it's not important, think again.

Great writing can envelop us, draw us into imagery so marvelous and fascinating that we lose track of time, of our cares, and our troubles. But that alone does not a great story make. If you take the reader on a glorious journey of language only to arrive back where you started, having ultimately said nothing, you will have failed in your purpose as a writer.

Stories pass on a host of things and too often the writer is drawn into the power of their own words that they forget the most basic element. What is a story? To tell someone something.

So go to it. Tell me.

-G.

Getting Started

2009-06-03T17:46:00.001-07:00

There's an itch in the back of your mind that you can't quite get at. The idea that's supplanted itself within you and won't let you rest. It could be a droplet or a raging flood; whatever the case, they all begin the same way -a fragment of an idea.

You want to get that idea onto paper, but you don't know where to start. For years you've promised yourself you would write that novel, or the memoir, or this short story, and the years have marched on in typical fashion. The sun's angle in the sky deepens as the cool, crisp autumn air seeps through the drafty windows and then those breezes turn to icy winds. Another season slips by and the birds welcome spring and the grass brightens. This is the inevitable nature of "I want to."

In writing, there is no, 'I want to.' There can be no option other than actual doing. Ideas, believe it or not, are cheap and easy to come by. They float around on thin strands, drifting along with the winds, those winds that move the seasons.

A lot of writers, and even more would-be writers, profess to struggle with getting down and dirty to work. Each one of us has our own unique reason for this; we have our individual identities and these excuses are like fingerprints. I've heard (and had) nearly every excuse to avoid the laborious act of writing -I'm tired; it's too late; I keep getting stuck; I doubt whether I'm any good; I don't know how ... and so on.

There is only one bit of advice that any writer can give another - write. No one's going to hold your hand or move your fingers for you. There's no success or failure in writing. The only failure is in not doing anything at all.

Write.

Sit down and write. If you have an idea, let it flow. If not, write about something you saw today, or something you did. Don't worry about how it sounds, don't worry about the language or the grammar or the syntax. The rest of that comes later. You are a writer, so write.

I think I'll go write now.

-G