September 25th, 2014

Liz, Scott's wife, here again!


Scott's coming to the end of his first edit for his book, so I told him I'd guest post to give him a break. He's at his writer's group tonight, so he's not going to read this before I post it, which he normally does, so bear with me if there are any typos...

I didn't really have a great idea for a blog post as I sat down to write this, but then I thought, what the hey, I'll just wing it.  I figured that something would come to me and I'd share it with the virtual world.  And that made me think that this is very Liz-ish of me. I work well with pressure and deadlines, and even better with external motivation. 

I actually tried to blog once (I have a tumblr account), but I'm very sporadic, and I think consistency is best for blogging. (That's why guest posting is perfect for me).

So, a writer I will never be, and that's okay. I actually have no desire to be a writer beyond the occasional blog post.

I think that one of the best things in life is to know yourself - "To thine own self, be true," that kind of thing.

I have to admit here that I had a very short-lived phase in college thinking I might want to be a writer. I took Script Interpretation, which I LOVED, and the professor told us that if we liked that class we should take his Playwright class the next semester because we'd probably like that too. 

hmmm... Not true. 

Especially not for me.  We had to write a one-act play as our final project, and mine was NOT GOOD.  I came across it a few years ago and I let Scott read it. He said that it wasn't that it was bad necessarily, it was just really rushed.  Like, I breezed over a lot of things and it was pretty short.

And, that was really accurate, actually.  When he said that, I seem to remember getting tired of writing dialogue, so I just stopped.  As in, I would just "skip to the end."  That doesn't really work when you are writing a play.

Thankfully, I still managed to get a B in the class (I think my professor was just really kind), and I learned something very, very important about myself...

I would never, ever, EVER be a writer.

And the reason I know that Scott is meant to be a writer is because he feels the exact opposite of how I did when I was taking that class.  I dreaded writing my play - I loathed crafting dialogue and thinking up scenes. I actually even came to despise one-act plays because of this class (I'm still trying to get over that, by the way).

So... enter Scott.

Kindly Blog Readers, he writes (believe it or not)... FOR FUN.  I can't believe it.  All these years, writing away, with no one putting a deadline on him or offering him pay for it, or because he wanted to get an A in the class.

I think that little adage that goes something like "If you can do anything else in life rather than be a writer, then you should do it" is true.  I mean, he's tried to do other things, but nothing's ever really panned out for one reason or another, and at the end of the day, he's always been a writer. 

So, thankfully, he's finally getting somewhere with it professionally.  But I know, even if he hadn't gotten picked up by a publisher, he would still be doing it, staying up late, nursing a cup of coffee, laboring over a chapter, debating about what do with a character, that sort of thing.  That's just him.

And it's cool.  He writes, I read - it's a good combination, actually.  And hopefully, a lot more people will be reading his book in the coming months as well.

Thanks for reading my thoughts, friends.  Thus fulfills my writing quota for the week.  :)