My partner recently wrote a short story. It’s not something he’s ever done before and he did it as an experiment, an exploration. Proofing it for him got me thinking, I’ve never tried writing fiction before either. I love reading it but I’ve never tried doing it myself. I’ve been writing a blog for over ten years but it’s always been my musings on either a subject or an experience. What would it be like to write a story?
 

I put it out to my mentor and she bulked. If you want to be a writer, you have to give it your all. You have to make time and space for it. You have to give yourself completely to it. Do you think you can commit to that? I don’t think I can right now, but what if I gave it some of my time? Where would I begin? What themes do I want to explore?
 

Since I’ve been thinking about it, books on the writing process have shown up in my orbit (of course). My partner, who always has stacks of books everywhere, had a book by Charles R. Johnson called The Way of the Writer. I picked it up and read a great passage on the relationship philosophy can have with fiction. He explains that fiction can be a wonderful medium to impart one’s thoughts on existential questions. Two of my favorite writes, Haruki Murakami and Jeanette Winterson both do this so well in their stories. I’ve also been reading Marukami’s Novelist As A Vocation book. He speaks about how many different ways there are to go about writing a book and that fiction is one of the few genres that don’t have parameters, like other genres do

Hmmmm, maybe I can do this

I bring this up with you to ask the next question – When was the last time you did something for the sake of doing it? For no other reason but just to explore the process?
 

Your homework, if you so choose to do it – do something in the next week that isn’t about the result but simply about the process. This could be an art form, going for an aimless walk, calling someone for no other reason than to hear their voice.

If it moves you to share, I’d love to hear about it.