Most everyone writes like most everyone walks. But we don't all strut like Carole Channing in Thoroughly Modern Millie (Movie 1967).
Don't you sometimes want to break free and feel that free abandon with work and life?
They say that every kid is an artist. But we're adults, and we have built up some self-consciousness. Or we're in the gap between where we are and where we want to be.
We have good taste. We can tell when a story doesn't ring true. We have a good idea, but we ask ourselves, why do I sound like a freshman when I want to have graduated with a Ph.D.?
It's the skill we need before applying what's in our hearts.
Skills can be learned.
But before we study grammar, story structure, plot, The Journey of the Hero, or the mechanics of the Screenplay, we must still the voice that screams in our ears that we can't have the thing we want.
We hesitate to play full-out in most endeavors. We want to dance while scrubbing the floor but scowl instead. A slight change of attitude would have made our time joyful instead of burning sunshine.
(I used to work in an office where the receptionist, when totally frustrated, would clean the office. It worked for all of us.)
We hear about doing what we love and getting paid to do it, and we try. We hear that life is supposed to be fun but feel we have little of it.
It's break-out time.
It might not happen all at once. It might come in spurts, but it will come. We are writers. We have declared ourselves to be, and so we are.
Now, we want to be good writers.
That's called learning our craft.
Once, at a writer's workshop, an author/presenter asked: "Who wants to be a writer?"
Everyone in the room raised their hands.
"Then what in the hell are you doing here?' he boomed. "Go home and write."
Here's where I have a problem: if you keep putting out the same old, you won't advance. Some input is necessary.
Let's investigate…
