I should be writing. Not this. The other thing. The other things. The real things.

The quality of my writing balances on an atmospherically high pyramid. Right on the tip. When it works, it looks great, its arms are barely outstretched in an effort to stay straight up. But the slightest breeze or slip of the phrase and the whole thing comes tumbling down and ends up bruised and tattered, at the base in the sand.

I'm not a trained writer. During my youth growth, I believe that I made several attempts to enter the world of writer training. For various reasons (or for a single, complex one), that never panned out. I don't think that I'd be better prepared to be a great writer had I managed to get involved in classes or workshops or things like that, but I think certainly that my craft would be more immediately available to me as something of quality. Not that I mind working at it, but I never developed the synapse flickers that come to trained writers naturally that help them avoid the novice pitfalls of mediocre writing. I've always been suspicious that my writing comes across, at its worst, as unpolished and professionally naive, and the more I think about it, the more I do believe that to be true.

I realize that only practice makes perfect, but practicing sailing in a windstorm with no salty captain or even an old ship's log to go by isn't really the best way to learn. I think that maybe now I have a guide and I hope this helps me along; I've been wet behind the ears for too long.

- posted by seanmh @ 4:13 PM