Find Me Serenity

If you have not yet read the “About” section (link above) or the “Welcome to the Insanity” entry that opened this blog (scroll down or see link to the right) please do so now and then continue to read this entry.  If you have, please proceed.

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What kind of writer would you call yourself? A poet? A journalist? Explain the type of writer you think you are and how that affects your writing. 

Cohen, Bryan (2010-09-23). 1,000 Creative Writing Prompts: Ideas for Blogs, Scripts, Stories and More (Kindle Locations 1417-1418).  . Kindle Edition.  

When I decided to allow myself to be a professional writer I wondered how I would answer that question. What kind of writer? I mean I have already been writing my whole life. Articles, reviews, blog posts, stories, poems, even a few attempts at screenplays. The answer, I hope, is a successful one.

Journalist. When I was a teenager my career goal was sports journalism. I am one of those gnerds (geeky nerd) who likes both pop culture and sports. Both have been a part of my life forever and ever. That is not to say I have ever been sporty. The gnerd gene was definitely the dominate one. Sports fan is about as far as the sports gene went. I never got to achieve that career goal, but for fifteen years I was an entertainment journalist.

Blogger. Entertainment journalism turned into blogging, which really could be the same thing but on a smaller scale. I still write things about entertainment but I tend to do them in short blurbs with my own opinions sprinkled in, which is essentially what blogging consists of. I tend to pepper in factual information (something journalism has lost over time) in with my opinions but mostly I just say ‘here’s this thing and this is why I like it!’

Storyteller. This is the one I strive to improve on. When I discovered I had a knack for writing gay erotica I made a point to do it in a way that told a story with characters and reasons behind actions. Some erotica can fall into the habit of writing a lot of sex with little substance otherwise. As a storyteller I needed to know, and let an audience know, why these people were in their situations. I strive to continue that, and bring more storytelling into mainstream topics, away from the erotica genre.  

How do these things affect my writing? Journalism is about facts and telling someone’s story in a compelling way. Because of this I tend to write long winded descriptions of scenes to set up action. Blogger. My opinion matters to everyone! That is what being a blogger does for your writing sense. You care about what I have to say, because see, I posted it online and then sent the link to all my social media followers! I have managed to keep my opinions on any number of controversial topics out of my writing for the most part. Storyteller. The ultimate goal for any fiction writer, or non-fiction for that matter. Every writer wants to tell a story with a beginning, middle and end. It is the ultimate goal. Unless you are writing a textbook or instruction manual. 

A side note. What kind of writer am I? A reader. There are two things I think of when I look back on my path to writer-dom. I have always been a reader, and I have always been a writer. And as I started writing this entry it occurred to me that as a teen, I read adult novels (Stephen King, mostly). As an adult I read teen novels. But the one thing all the books have in common: monsters and fantasy. How does that affect my writing? Every book I read these days has me stopping to say “I can do that.”