Writing problems

I said in my first post, this blog is about my desire to write and the want to have a separate space to work out my writing problems. For as long as I can remember, I have wanted to be a writer. I think ever since I read my first Nancy Drew book. Not just a journalist, like I am now, but a novelist. I just think that would be the greatest thing ever. I can wear an ascot and visit salons, talking about the very essence of being and how it relates to man’s struggle for meaning. And I can sleep in and travel whenever I want to.

I have had articles published, but it isn’t the same as having a novel published. And the regional and trade presses aren’t the same as the national press, of course. I like fiction because I can manipulate facts to suit me. In journalism, they frown on that sort of thing. I think it’s that pesky adherence to the facts that makes it so stifling.

I have been chronicling my NaNoWriMo journey on myspace and I am surprised that I haven’t participated in the event before. I have been trying to pinpoint exactly what it is that makes me so scared of writing. It’s hard work, of course. But I think it is much more than that. I always worry I will run out of plot. I don’t know if it is the journalism training, but I can’t drag out a scene with a bunch of extraneous words when one or two will do. Consequently, there is not a lot of description in my books. It just seems forced to me when I write it. Everyone else’s descriptions are great. I write a lot of dialogue to make up for the lack of description. I guess that I would like you, dear reader, to color in the scene in your own mind. For example, I can say:

“Mr. X jumped into his messy car, speeding away from the scene.”

Which is how I would probably write it although it is not very effective Everyone knows what a messy car is although no two people may not agree what a mess constitutes. Another writer may write this:

“Mr. X jumped into the front seat of his messy car, landing on fast food wrappers, empty paper bags, and soda cans. In the back seat, hampering his view, was his laundry, piled high and piled dirty. And shoes, more shoes than one cares to imagine. They were wedged under the emergency brake and gas pedal. They hampered his escape.”

OK, Maybe the second blurb is much more interesting than the first. But see? How would I have known if I hadn’t written it out?

That type of thinking outloud is what you are going to get from me on this blog. I am way out of school and there are no creative writing workshops around where I can get feedback, and I don’t have anything 100% prepared to send to a publisher, so I am going to sound it all out on here. And I would like comments.