Growing Up

As children we don't know what growing up really is. We don't realise that one day we will have to pay bills or that we will have to fill out a form about our medical history or that one day we may fall in love or that somebody we love may die, we don't know any of this because we haven't grown up yet. Through life we all have to grow up. Even forty-year-olds have to grow up sometimes, 'step up to the occasion' as it were. Writing is a form of growing up. We start off writing mini stories in school, then a few of us from the class start imitating our favourite writers, then we start writing our epics, our masterpieces, but we realise that they're shit, stuff them in a drawer and start again. The beginning of writing, whether it be physical or mental, is a series of attempts, failures and experiments. When I started writing 'seriously' I used to clutter my work with descriptions - every character had to be described, every room, every object. In fantasy, of course, but in the realistic and horror stuff I am writing, of course not. I grew up - and am still growing up - but found what I'm good at doing. 


Just like life, with writing you never know what's around the corner. I follow writers like J.K. Rowling and like to plan every scene, every chapter, like to know my character's inside out before I write them. Others do as Stephen King does and write it and see what happens, by writing their story they are hearing one too. But with any type of writing - planned or unplanned - we never know what will happen, what characters we're going to encounter, what worlds, what situations and that is part of growing up. When we grow we learn and with growing in our writing worlds we learn more things, experience it all. 


Only short one today, folks, but lots more to come on literature. It's been sparse on here but I've been writing reviews - you may want to check out my latest one, published tomorrow on http://www.bookgeeks.co.uk/ - and have been writing this damned script so my second year of University is over. See, growing up.