Writing by Hand

I'll cut the Camp NaNoWriMo report short and say that I didn't get far into finishing Rogue Beings. I'm sure I'll finish it someday but that day has not come yet. For now, I'm focusing on just writing for me and enjoying it.

I've sent Untitled Fantasy in to my instructor-editor and am waiting for their feedback. I was going to edit the first draft before I sent it but I decided not to (and the instructions were to send it as soon as I was done without editing anything). As far as I know, it has arrived at the school but I have no idea when I'm going to get any feedback. It's only been a week or two though so I'm trying not to think about it.

In the mean time, I've been rereading The Two Towers and The Return of the Shadow. For those of you who don't know, the latter is a book on Tolkien's writing process while he was creating The Lord of the Rings. I've read the first and second drafts of the first chapter so far and am amazed at the difference already. It's so interesting watching Tolkien figure out what is going on.

As I've mentioned before, Tolkien is one of my inspirations. I love knowing that much of The Lord of the Rings' creation was sporadic and disorganized. I'm slowly learning to enjoy the writing process. I have a habit of rushing myself and I'm trying not to do that. In my efforts to enjoy the journey, I've started writing by hand. I'm not quite sure what it is that I'm writing but I'm also trying not to think about it too much. My main goal with this project is to let my pen take me where it will.

An entirely different creative door opens when you step away from your computer and go back to pen and paper. When you're typing, the mind has a tendency to take over. It's almost like your hands are instinctively creative and that creativity tends to flow uninterrupted when given a pen. Magic blooms across the page and your mind remember words you don't usually use and phrase things differently.

That's my experience at least...

Sometimes you need a project just for you and this one truly is just that. I'm not ready to figure it all out yet, I just want to continue to write it in scenes and watch the story take form from there. It can be anything it wants and I don't intend to get in the way of that.