Writing

Writing In The Dark Can Be Fun

/in /by

Every time I feel confident in my knowledge of this new world of writing, I am reminded how little I know. Which ought to be discouraging, I guess. But instead is oddly reassuring.

There is something comforting about knowing there is so much more left to learn, to be secure in one’s own deficiencies of knowledge.

Last year, I struggled to understand how to best express a story’s essence. What goes into a plot arc and how pacing should work. How to build a character who had a life before this story. And in the marrow of things, I was struggling with whether there was any writing worth reading in me.

And I researched what an author’s website should offer. How to build a platform. What goes into designing book covers and where to find a designer. How to find a good editor.

Last year, I was trying to grasp how to begin beginning.

Now I am learning how to continue beginning. And in some ways, I am light years from where I was last January. I’m beginning to understand what I need to do next. At least when it comes to the writing part.

But today, I read a helpful article on How to Choose the Best Keywords when Publishing Fiction on Amazon and I was overwhelmed by the extent of my ignorance once again. I researched this information last year and I thought I understood it then. But I was wrong.

This sense of being lost at sea, is amazing. Exciting.

And I am so grateful for it. And for the new confusions and misunderstandings I struggle with in this becoming-more-familiar writing world. Because I had thought one of the sorrows of growing up was becoming jaded in knowledge.

Adults I knew growing up always seemed so sure. And I worried it wouldn’t be fun to be an adult if that was the way my mind would become. I never trusted certitude.

Which is why feeling stupid again and again is so invigorating. Irritating, too – I can’t lie – but refreshing too.

Rose Grey has written three romance novels and is hard at work on a fourth. Wednesday is generally book review day. Unless it isn’t. If you liked this post, come visit the rest of the blog at www.rosegreybooks.com. Waiting For You, Hot Pursuit and Not As Advertised are available as ebooks and as paperbacks online.