I just wrote my first piece of fiction.
Tomorrow I will post it in its entirety. The way it happened was completely unpremeditated – in fact, it started as a post about something real, but quickly took on a life of its own.
I’m sure I’ll write more about it as I give it more thought – I certainly learned quite a few things in the process. When I was doing it, I didn’t overthink anything, I just let it happen organically.
If anyone is reading this, it began as a post titled “The Question Mark Bridge.” Once it started coming to life, I wrote each part almost like a serial. As I got close to the end, I just finished it in a burst and it seemed silly to keep posting it in pieces – it was becoming too disjointed to read like that anyway.
So if you have been reading it in pieces over time, I encourage you to go back and read it again from the beginning – it works best read in one sitting, where the story and characters can slowly reveal themselves to you.
As an artist, you have no control over how others interpret your work, and that is as it should be. But you live for those moments where you create something and you know it’s good. Artists are their own harshest critics, so this isn’t easy.
I think one of the lessons here is to pay attention to where your mind and life are telling you to go. If you’re trying to force something to make it happen, it’s probably not the right thing for you to be doing at that moment.