I rather enjoyed it...

V.

Thanks. It's always hard to know how things will be received in a setting like this.

Nothing like a little stream of consciousness to take the edge off.

Eh, that's what the moonshine was for. The writing was basically the end result. I was in a silly/stupid mood and had no inspiration for any real story.

Anything that pushes the pen across the paper counts as inspiration to me, even if that kind of writing is figurative since most of us use keyboards and phones nowadays.

When I first tried writing (not homework for school) I did it with pencil and a spiral-bound notebook. (That was several lifetimes ago, by my reckoning. Also known as 10 to 15 years.) Initially, I thought it was a good idea since it forced me to reread my work at least once, which means editing, and computer time was limited. Now, I have no desire to try that again. Almost everything I penciled remained in a closed book and my endless revising, correcting, or even simple rewording would make things way too messy.

Handwriting is an art form that I treasure, quite literally. I have an entire bookshelf full of journals, novels, poems and stories I've written down. Nowadays I can't argue with the fact that I type faster than I print, but most of my story seeds still come from notebooks. I jot down the immediate essence of the idea, then draw it out and refine it until it counts as a either a scene or short story if I'm feeling exceptionally productive.

I've always been a "first draft is the final draft" kind of writer, which has hamstrung me many times when I get caught up in editing the draft as I write it. Stories get away from you if you don't chase them closely enough. Thankfully I now have my two-step, notebook to computer method, so I've improved a little bit.

I pretty much write the same way. First and final draft are almost the same. My OCD won't let me get away with quickly jotting down something, then coming back later to flesh out the details, make adjustments, etc. It actually makes further editing even worse. A lot of times I cringe while reading my own work. Sometimes I'm pretty sure that I'm just being overly critical and sometimes I wonder if it really is that bad, objectively speaking. So most of the time I just run my work through a grammar/spell check and gloss over the story to hopefully catch obvious mistakes that the software didn't catch.

For the longest time I kept my stories to myself because I enjoyed them and didn't want to be told I was not a good writer. As time went by and my friends kept asking me questions, eventually I let them read and they liked it a lot. And some didn't. It went both ways. The best way to get a clearer view of your skill is to get as much feedback as possible from as many people as you can. Everyone experiences the words differently, and we writers can use that tool to branch out and be flexible.

For therapeutic writing, I always keep it to myself. My journals are intensely private for a reason. I often use them to draw out poison and fear from my everyday life so I can function. Anyone who reads those pages will think very poorly of me, but it's like having a friend to talk to who never tells your secrets, never interrupts while listening, and never judges. Once I've worked through my anxiety there, I'm much more stable. And that's entirely for my benefit, not for others perusal.

I enjoyed it. Yep, yep, I did.

*tips a nod*

Much appreciated.