The Writing Game

I write. I write because I have to not because it's a real choice for me. The real interesting thing about writing is you cannot do it all the time and when I can't write, like when I'm behind the wheel of my car or when I'm curled up in bed, my mind is still working creating stories or different ways of saying a simple every day sentence. Sometimes I find that I play with the words and generate quite a few different ways of saying something.

Stories, even the true ones, are from my personal perspective on the life around me and the things I see and write about are seen from my angle. If you think about it, that's why those eye witnesses to crimes are so unreliable. The view is never objective. So when a writer gives their point of view you should always look at it as one way of viewing the incident or event.

I've deviated a bit here but that's why the public is often so entranced by books and stories because it's like getting into someone else's head and out of our own. That is also why most good writers are also prolific readers. So if Hemingway said something one way, how can I say the same thing - but make it more accessible, or more intense, or more anything that make my piece more original.

That's the challenge I set for myself each and every time I sit before a blank page. Writing is a test - one that I have to do differently each and every day to make it work.