I’m Writing…

“Writing time” is rare for me it seems…but with the encouragement, and insight, and help of my NF4NF peers, I am learning to regard writing as more than just BIC.

Pat Miller, at the recent Non-Fiction 4 New Folks seminar in Texas, gave participants a ‘bookmark’ that reminds us to ‘keep writing.’ She was careful to define that as whatever we are needing in our writing life to move forward with our goals.

That bookmark is reminding me to get my butt in my writing chair.

YES, butt-in-chair is critical…necessary…elemental to the writing experience.  But so are the following:

SIC- Self in Community – engaged in the writing community as a source for the pressure and affirmation we need from one another to write well, write better, write from ourselves in a way that others can read us.

BIR- Brain in Research – Learning both facts and truths about our topics and settings and causes-and-effects so that our stories can maintain for non-fiction authenticity and accuracy, or  for fiction a strong suspension of disbelief.

HIW – Heart in Writing – Discovering, if we don’t yet know, why we want to write. This can be empowering and freeing.

TIC – Training in Craft – How to write well for your readers is where a writer’s skills, knowledge, and passion combine to become the art of his or her heart.

Expression doesn’t happen automatically for writers, it’s learned and practiced and done.

So I expect, to paraphrase the old Sammy Fain song, that “[I’ll] be  seeing [you] in—-all the old familiar [writing] places.”