The question: Why in the world do you come to the page?

The answer: I don’t know.

How do I not know? I wondered. I’ve always considered myself a writer. From the first time I wrote my own story, I wanted to write more.

I’ve always wanted to harness the power of words the way that George Bailey wants to lasso the Moon:

What did George want to do with the moon? Who knows. But he wanted it. So is my desire to use words. I don’t know to what purpose.

Now I’m facing an internal crisis: Who am I writing for? What do I want to write? Why am I writing?

“Rebecca’s Writing Practices” is the fifth blog I’ve set up. I’m realizing I don’t have an answer to those questions in terms of this blog.

Two of my blogs are family blogs—one for me to write my life events and thoughts for my family and friends, one to post pictures of my adorable baby boy for his grandmas. These are extensions of my personal journal. I write in my journal as a sort of personal catharsis to the happy and painful events of life. My audience is myself, my family, and my extended family. I learn from my past self when I revisit my journal pages. I feel like this writing has a purpose, and I often feel satisfied with my recordings of my life. It is not polished writing, but it is mine.

Another blog I’ve begun is a reading/book reviews blog for other readers. While I am trying to keep my varied audience of readers in mind, ultimately I write because I feel the need to think critically of the things I read. I studied English in college, and I find myself trying to apply the things I learned about literature to my current reading and succinctly analyze my writing. While my reviews certainly are not A+ term paper material, I feel good about my developing ability to succinctly capture the emotions and themes of the books I’m reading.

My fourth blog is my photography blog. I don’t focus on writing, but rather capturing my memories and emotions through photography. I feel satisfied with my photography, amateur that I am.

That leads me back again to “Rebecca’s Writing Practices.” I realize that, despite what published authors say, I must have an audience in mind when I write. I’m realizing I don’t know my audience, and it’s making it hard to write. What do I want to write? I’m most familiar with personal nonfiction sketches because I’m so used to journaling and blogging. That’s what I began focusing on. I started responding to prompts using the personal experiences that are familiar to me. I want to write fiction, but I always feel frustrated when I do; it is never convincing to me because I’ve never been there. I realize that I don’t need to write for a blog, but I’m struggling to find purpose to my writing when I’m the only one reading it from the hard drive of my computer.

This leads me back to the original question: What brings me to the page (or computer, in my case) in the first place?

I have this longing, an urge, to fill the white screen with my words, with my creativity. I want to be a Creator, through words. But I don’t think that’s enough. I need a reason to write, and I need to have an audience in mind.

I wrote something dumb recently. When I reread it and noticed how ridiculous it was, I threw it out in shame. Now, I’ve been having a hard time writing anything. I just can’t approach writing this week.

I think I’m afraid that whatever I create will be mediocre—a problem I’m sure will be true. This blog wasn’t intended to be for polished writing. I’m so out of practice, anything I write will be mediocre.

I realize that I am an amateur writer. As a child I was full of creativity. I wrote stories, I wrote in a journal, I wrote plays, and I generally remained creative. I haven’t had any forums for my creativity lately. I desire some of those “creative juices” so I can be the writer I want to be.

I started this blog to force myself to be accountable—to have a forum where I felt I must answer the internal call to write. I thought I’d respond to the online writing prompts and that would help me become better. In some respects, it’s been good to respond. In others, I don’t see it helping. I don’t want people telling me “Well done!” or “I understand” all the time because that won’t help me. At the same time, I’m terrified of being told that I’m a lousy writer and that my images are ridiculous or silly.

I realize that I need an audience in mind when I write: I need a purpose to what I’m writing. Writing “for the world” via a blog is not necessarily working for me.

I’ll be back on this blog. But first I need to figure out why I’ve started it, and I need to get past this week of writer’s block.

The monthly challenge for the My Manuscript Stinks Society (MMS Society) was to write four scenes of a novel.

Make sure that each scene creates a different emotion or group of emotions. … Also, make sure that each scene features at least one strong image (try using all five of the senses).

I won’t post any of my novel on the web. I won’t even tell you what it’s about. Why?

1. It really stinks. I cannot write fiction. My attempts are so horrible, I am embarrassed.
2. I’m positive I’ll rewrite these scenes a number of times.
3. I’m not sure the current plot will work or be interesting or both and I don’t want my ideas to be shot down just quite yet.

However, I did this assignment, mostly. I reworked an old scene (despair) and then I wrote three new ones (joy, fear, and anger leading to sadness). They were all short. On this website, I’ve been working on “short” scenes, in which I create emotions, setting or characters in a very small amount of space. When I went to my novel this month, I found myself focusing on very small snippets of the scenes. I am having a hard time creating a larger scene and continuing the dialogue.

As I said above, I consider my fiction writing talents to be horrible. Having an “assignment” to revisit my attempt at a novel was very good for me.

1. As I started writing the scene with a vague idea of characters, I found my characters taking on slightly different attitudes then I anticipated. Now I know what people mean when they say they write but the characters create themselves. (Interestingly, a year ago I had anticipated writing from a daughter’s point of view and started a few scenes. A few months ago, I became a mother. Now I found myself changing and writing from the mother’s point of view. It feels much more natural. This is what I mean about rewriting the entire thing a few times.)
2. I found that it is hard to describe an emotion: I find myself remembering how I have felt at various points in my life. I can’t describe an emotion using five senses unless I’ve experienced it.
3. It is challenging to write dialogue that is convincing, but dialogue is what moves each scene.

I have a lot to learn about how to create a fictional scene. What suggestions do you have? I’d appreciate your advice!