Energy and all the Writing that Goes With It

More reading about writing, I do it every Sunday to keep ahead of my school work. But this week, this week made me panic. One of the textbooks in class is The Practice of Creative Writing by Heather Sellers. It's a fine book and I had to read a few chapters one of them about tension and energy and then it hit me... do I have the energy? Am I boring? Shit, I can't do this or I can do this but it won't be any good because it is flat and boring and lifeless. I often wondered if my work was boring.

I sent my parents a copy of my novel to read over before I put in on Kindle. Honestly, I love it, my novel that is. It is twisted and demented and crazy and just everything. It is the right time to publish this book. It has to be now and not two years from now. And guess what both have said they have not finished reading it.  Horse shit. They didn't finish a short novel which my first thought was it so boring they couldn't finish it. Let me tell you that really sucks.

I read my work and I read it fast, it moves fast. But I am too close to the work, I am always too close to the work. Even when I put an editor hat on, the work is still close to me. I think about my novel everyday. Not about the story because I think the story is fine. I think about getting it ready without anyone's thoughts on it. I have to rely on myself and I really wanted feedback on the novel. Now, I am back to the self doubt again, maybe I am not a good writer.

Sure, I can write a grammatically proper sentence. I can make proper paragraphs and cohesive papers but that's not enough. Sometimes, reading books about writing is a damper. I never think about tension but I know it exists. I don't create triangle diagrams or other diagram to display the action sequences. If any of this exists in my work, I would have no idea because writing just comes to me.

I don't think about stanza or line breaks, what ever comes out comes out. It varies. Where does this leave me? Who knows? So, I am going to toot my own horn I am special and different and that is reflected in my writing.  This has to be true, right?

To me, energy is transposed from the writer to the page to the reader. If I am excited and energized what I am working on, then it's going to show without me knowing about. That is your job as a reader to discern.

This Tuesday is my birthday and I will be 34 and I know that there is something amazing for me just around the corner (in addition to the camping trip we are taking in the middle of the week). Have a wonderful week.