ART.........In word form.

Most weekends, or at least the ones when my oldest son is here. I unplug myself from facebook, goodreads, blog spot, and all of the other various forms of Internet I find myself wasting time on everyday, so that I can spend more time with the family. The only reason I'm on now is because of something profound that came over me.

That profound thought was that as a wanna-be-writer I spend half the time that should be devoted to writing, researching. I research grammar, and mythology, other Indie Authors, and what books are popular at the time. I research writing styles, and how to avoid passive voice, I research every question or issue I come across and still nothing has made deleting any easier.

Even though a line may be bad, (and believe me there are plenty) I still have this emotional attachment to every word I write. I feel like I'm calling my children ugly. LOL I can't get past it, I tweak the sentence then feel guilty, I delete another and feel sick. I know that my words are not literary genius, hell half the time it might not even be considered English, but I'm attached to them. It probably doesn't help that the first draft I wrote for The Wild Hunt (previously titled Midnight Manor, Finding Harmony, and a lot of other really BAD ideas) didn't just get gutted, I tossed it, all 370 pages of it.



Maybe my agony over editing is the residual affects of my murdering the first draft, who knows. I just find it interesting, and slightly comical that I have this strange attachment to my story. I'm dreading the moment when it's out in the world. Will people hate it (probably) will it be any good (probably not) but I want to shield it, like a five year old child's first day of school. I want to hold my books hand and pat it on the back. I want to protect it from the big mean bullies that will pick on it, and tease it, and make it feel bad about itself. It's a book, I remind myself, not a child.

So do other authors feel this way about their stories?

Are they as protective of their work as I am of my words?

It makes you think, and it also makes me realize what big bad ass balls Authors truly have. Because they aren't just walking their book to the first day of school, no they are inviting you inside their own minds. Asking you to see their world, to read their words and find the dream they are trying to weave. Like anything else some are better than others, some are so in tuned with their creation the words flow over the page, fingers tapping, keys clicking, until the screen is filled with more than just letters on a page, but a creation, a work of art. And that's what writing is really, ART. Instead of a paint brush or a piece of charcoal the artist holds the pen, or types the keyboard, and where once there was only a blank page, at the end of the day a dream unfolds, a manuscript, an idea created from nothing.

It's profound. It's intoxicating, and it's something unlike anything I've ever done before. So when I shield my creation, when my finger floats just above the delete key, hesitant to press down, I'll remember that to others it might be just a word on a computer screen, but to me it's as timeless as a symphony, as invoking as a sculpture, and as painstakingly soul bearing as a painting.

Art, in word form.