Why I Write What I Write #OpenBook

Posted on by Astrid

“I write because I don’t know what I think until I read what I say.” – Flannery O’Connor

Yesterday, I read Stevie Turner’s post for the Open Book Blog Hop and the topic really struck a chord, as did the accompanying quote, which I copied above. The question Stevie poses for this week’s hop is why we write what we write.

I mostly write personal essays, journal entries and other works of autobiographical nonfiction. It may surprise you that I didn’t start out this way. As a child, I wrote fiction more than I wrote diaries. I wasn’t too imaginative, but I tried my best and my parents and teachers were pretty impressed. I always wanted to be a writer.

I started writing a regular diary when I was thirteen. About nine months later, I read Anne Frank’s diary and pretty quickly decided I wanted my diaries published when I’d grow up. That never happened and isn’t going to happen either, not even here, since my crazy ramblings of the time are none of my current day readers’ business. It was 2000 at the time, so online diaries already existed, but I was unaware of their existence.

I continued to write some fiction on a semi-regular basis and aspire to get at least some pieces of fiction published at some point until my late teens or early twenties. Now, I don’t have any aspirations for getting any fiction published.

As for why I write what I write, there are two main reasons. The first is to express myself. I revived this specific blog in 2018 in an attempt to allow myself to write more from the heart than I was permitting myself to do on my old blog.

As an offshoot from the wish to express myself comes the wish to find likeminded individuals. I blog in English because the English-language blogosphere on WordPress and Blogger is much larger and by extension more diverse than the Dutch one, which consists primarily of wannabe “influencers”. Through my writing, I aim to connect to people who share similar experiences to mine.

With respect to my fiction, this has always been the goal of my writing, really, too. My fiction always had very strong autobiographical components and I was looking to diversify young adult fiction. I am sometimes surprised at how well-represented people in minority positions, including multiple minorities, are in fiction nowadays. As a teen, my goal was to be part of that movement. I guess by merely writing openly about my experiences online, even though I’m no longer engaged in activism, I may be doing this.

#IWSG: Bloggy Friendships

Posted on by Astrid

IWSG

Hi everyone again. It’s the first Wednesday of the month and this means it’s time again for the Insecure Writer’s Support Group (#IWSG) to meet. I must say I did pretty well with respect to my writing over the month of January. I wrote a blog post almost everyday. Of course, at the beginning of the month, I planned to do even better. That’s usual for me. I hope with #Write28Days in February, it doesn’t go in the same direction.

For those visiting from the IWSG who don’t know what #Write28Days is, it’s a kind of restart of the original #Write31Days October challenge, in which you pick a topic and write about it for the entire month. Thankfully, randomness is a topic too and we aren’t currently required to even have a topic. The idea is just to write everyday. Hence, this post really counts for #Write28Days too. I may or may not write another one this evening.

In addition to writing pretty consistently over the past month, I also took some steps outside of my comfort zone. I wrote two pieces of flash fiction. Both were extremely short, under 100 words each. I’m not sure they count as actual pieces and not just exerpts. In that case, there is no broader story as of yet.

Now on to this month’s optional question. Today, the IWSG crowd talk friendships and relationships developed because of blogging. I don’t honestly think I have any though. That is, I consider carol anne from Therapy Bits and Emilia from My Inner MishMash my friends, but I can’t remember whether I first “met” them through blogging or through E-mail lists.

Maybe though, I can count my husband. After all, though we met via a message board, one of the reasons he contacted me to meet up was that he’d read my blog. This blog, I’ve since made private because of the spammy visitors.

Other than this, I don’t think I’ve developed any bloggy friendships. I also must admit I’m horrible with reciprocating visits. I just realized, in fact, that, in general, I’m not that good at keeping in touch with friends, be it through my blog, the rest of the Internet or in real life. I really need to improve on that.

Flash Fiction: ER

Posted on by Astrid

I look(1) at the patient and notice(1) she’s cyanosing(2). I check her pulse, which is very faint(5). I tell my colleague in a whispering)3) voice: “Please get the doc. I don’t know what happened, but she has to come through.” I lovingly(4) stroke her arm. Despite being a nurse, I can’t act. I can’t imagine my own daughter is in such a feeble(5) condition.

This piece of flash fiction was written for MindloveMisery’s Menagerie’s Saturday Mix for this week, which was Same Same But Different. The challenge is to write about the five words provided, but not use them. The words were: see, blue, soft, kind and weak.

I saw that many participants used synonyms for “blue” such as “sad” and “moody”. For me though, immediately, words that convey the color blue came to mind.

Obviously, this piece is entirely the product of my own imagination. I have absolutely no idea whether there’s any realism about this tale, but I loved trying to come up with it.

#IWSG: Inspiration to Start Writing

Posted on by Astrid

It’s not the first Wednesday of the month, but the Insecure Writer’s Support Group (#IWSG) day got set for today anyway because last Wednesday was New Year’s. I should really start to schedule these posts in advance, as right now I’m sick with the flu and not in the mood to blog. I mean, yesterday I ran a fever. Probably the days before too, but I didn’t have it checked then. Today I’m fine temperature-wise, but I still feel generally awful. I spent the entire day in bed.

This month’s optional question is what inspired you to start on your writing journey. The short answer is I don’t know. I’ve wanted to be a writer for as long as I can remember. My parents did encourage me, even though looking back I was a pretty awful fiction writer. Either they didn’t notice, which I doubt as my Mom read a lot, or they didn’t want to discourage me.

I first started writing actual stories and even what could’ve turned into books had I finished them when I was around thirteen. I don’t know what inspired me to draft those first manuscripts.

In the summer that I turned fourteen, I discovered my favorite Dutch YA author, Caja Cazemier. She was definitely an inspiration for me. A few of my stories actually contained a lot of plagiarism from her.

And then I discovered the Internet and I started writing for an audience. Well, at first I didn’t really care about an audience. My original online diary had about five readers including my parents and the site I hosted it on, didn’t have a comment function. I actually moved it to WordPress inspired by some criticism I’d gotten from my parents about it.

I’m not sure what else to say right now. I am currently very much inspired to continue writing by the people I meet online. I can’t even imagine writing without an audience in mind anymore.

#IWSG: Finding My Voice

Posted on by Astrid

Today, it is once again time to share our thoughts with the Insecure Writer’s Support Group (#IWSG). The optional question assigned for this month is to write about from whose perspective you like to write best. Since I rarely write fiction nowadays, my answer is simple: my own.

I didn’t do much blogging in the past month. Part of the reason is the need to remain silent about some recent occurrences in my life. This means some diary-style writing is out of the question right now. Unless, that is, I do it offline.

Which brings me to the fact that I rediscovered Dyrii, an app on my iPhone and now on my Mac too, which you can use for keeping a journal. It still needs a little getting used to on my part, but overall, I like it. It helps me find my voice again, even if it isn’t in public.

I seem to have been able to write some more again in the past week. It feels good. I always feel good when I write.

I am also seriously thinking of starting up my fiction writing again, even though I am told that it generally lacks imaginativeness. I will see if tomorrow, which is my day off from day activities, I can write some fictional piece again.

In other news, I got myself the Dictionary.com app on my iPhone. I am loving looking up new words and idioms. As you might know, English is my second language and half the words that I come across in word-of-the-day challenges, I do not know the meaning of. I’m told this isn’t so unusual and that I’d benefit more from learning idioms rather than vocabulary. I don’t care. It’s cool to learn either way.