Something stirs...
You won't believe this, but only the other day I actually remembered that I'm supposed to be a writer! I'm not sure precisely why, but Victor Hugo had something to do with it. So too did my cousin Alan who has started reading my first book which I wrote something scary like five years ago now. Looking back at that time it seems almost like a different world. So much so I admit I've almost forgotten what it was like to be writing regularly - and more to the point enjoying it!
And what has Victor Hugo got to do with it? I hear ye all ask. Well, for any of you who don't know, he's the guy who wrote Les Mis, and also the Hunchback of Notre-Dame. I had the good fortune of reading an abridged version of Les Mis earlier this year and actually quite enjoyed it, even if French authors do seem to ramble alot. I actually bought Hunchback off Amazon nearly two years ago now and have gradually pushed it further and further down my reading pile until finally the other day I decided it was probably time I read it.
Unfortunately Hunchback has shown me the error of my ways in judging Hugo's writing without reading an un-abridged version of any of his works. Let's just say he rambles on a bit.
It was actually something like twenty pages or so into the (some might say needless) book three, where in the narrator is describing the various sections of Paris in minute detail that my mind started to wander. For some strange reason the tedium of Victor Hugo's description awoke something inside me that said 'yes, writing can be far more enjoyable than this' and my brain started to whir into action thinking about a new idea for the PTB series. Now of course I'm not saying I can write better than Victor Hugo - that would be silly and indeed stupendously arrogent of me - but the point still stands: writing CAN be fun, and SHOULD be fun. Hopefully the pages and pages of endless description of Paris have done enough to reignite the writing flame in me so that I might at last be able to settle down again to doing some serious writing.
I've missed it, I really have.
I don't mean whacking out the short little comedy pieces that are my SL artices - I mean REAL writing. Prose. Prose is where it's at.
You know I've actually got two ideas on the go now: one a fantasy PTB series idea, and another (funnily enough) based around the SL concept. I have VanessaM to thank for the second idea of course, and in a strange roundabout way also for the first. Without my 'intellectual mistress' as she likes to refer to herself, I do wonder where I'd be sometimes, even if I haven't spoken to her in an absolute age.
So anyway, yes... I think getting back to some serious writing would be good for me. Now if only I could get this damned university work out of the way...