Patience is a funny thing when it comes to writing.
On one hand you have writers shouting write every day! Write all the time!
While that is vital, I found that sometimes that just isn't possible.
Let my clarify here. If you have writers block. Then write your heart out. Just sit down and start typing or writing with a pen and paper if that is what you are into.
It doesn't really matter how you write.
Just do it.
The funny thing about doing that is the words most of the time just spill out.
Sometimes, that isn't the case though.
I started writing this book when I was 18-19 years of age. I am 24 now. I realize I am still young, but I just a boy back then. I hardly felt like I knew how to properly conjugate sentences let alone catch the subtleties of humanity so I could put it into words.
But I wrote none the less.
Sure it was mess, but hey, I did it.
If you want more on how much of a mess I was check out HERE.
At some points in my writing career I learned that no matter how hard I tried I just couldn't think of the words. Writing didn't help. Not even writing garbage helped. It was as if I couldn't recreate what I was seeing. I'm actually not sure that I even knew what I was trying to see at the time.
But thankfully after a few years I had an epiphany.
I found that it wasn't just writers block.
No. It was something far more interesting than that. Something that couldn't be learned through a book, but with time alone. To put it simply, I didn't have the experience necessary to write on what I wanted.
I didn't have emotions to draw on.
In other words I didn't know how to have the characters react because I never had a chance to react to it.
No. It was something far more interesting than that. Something that couldn't be learned through a book, but with time alone. To put it simply, I didn't have the experience necessary to write on what I wanted.
I didn't have emotions to draw on.
In other words I didn't know how to have the characters react because I never had a chance to react to it.
I know that sounds odd, but hear me out.
I had my initial inspiration for this story after my mother passed away. That gave me the base line. There is a reason why Dag says that the darkness spreads like a cancer and devours all that is known.
I had my base line because of a significant loss in my life. That is why the characters were fighting against something that threatened to take everything they loved away from them.
I had my foundation, but I didn't have the whole story yet.
I had my foundation, but I didn't have the whole story yet.
What came next was the complete feeling of hopelessness that Dag and the other's felt as they tried everything they could. You might think that that feeling would have come while watching someone that I loved with cancer get sicker and sicker. That was more like watching death unfold before my very eyes, but I didn't ever feel the same feeling of hopelessness that I had written into my characters.
I had that when I first moved to Las Vegas. As some of you may know I am Canadian and the immigration process was not as easy and quick as my wife and I originally thought.
Don't get me wrong I wouldn't change it for the world, but that didn't make it hard.
Much like the characters I had to go through something hard and frustrating. Something that beat me down and made it feel like I could never make a difference. That is why the characters never have high hopes and don't feel as though they are ever making progress.
The final one that I want to mention is rather simple and I had discovered it first without even knowing.
That is friendship.
Friendship is by far, well to me at least, the most important part of this story. Especially the friendship between Dag and Kor-Voda.
I have to thank my friend Clay for that.
He is in every way Kor-Voda. He is the hairy beast that people give strange looks, but would never hurt a fly unless provoked. Let me tell you when provoked you don't want to stand in his way.
There are many other subtleties that I had to learn with time, but I believe that my brain has just turned them into unconscious reactions. Sort of like riding a bike.
For example the art of writing is something that I am constantly evolving and working on. I must always have patience when it comes to this skill.
I think it will be something I'm working on till the day that I die.
I think it will be something I'm working on till the day that I die.
For those new writers and more experienced writers a like you may know what I am talking about.
That constant pain of never feeling good enough and always wanting to get better.
In a strange way that is what makes us great writer.
We are never satisfied. That is our strength.
That constant pain of never feeling good enough and always wanting to get better.
In a strange way that is what makes us great writer.
We are never satisfied. That is our strength.
For me writing is about putting my experiences into a tangible way my brain can experience them.
Apparently that mean fantasy stories about wizards and warlocks and an all-consuming darkness.
You can find that HERE by the way.
What I'm trying to say is be patient.
You won't have all the answers right now. You will never have all the answers.
But know in time you will. Just be sure to read every day and to go out and experience life.
And most of all have patience.
Don't worry. It will come to you.
Don't worry. It will come to you.
Brett Currah is author of Under a Crimson Sky.
It is here on his old blog that he brings to life
his story of writing his first fantasy novel.
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