Introduction

Hi there and welcome to my blog!  I'm Tanya and, to sum me up, I am a wife, mom to an adorable boy and girl (Connor, 4, and Lydia, almost 2), library specialist, English tutor, adjunct instructor, jogger, reader, and writer.  I've always loved a good story and an interesting character, whether told through words, the big screen, or the small screen.  I have pretty eclectic tastes, too.  I never know what's going to interest me or what's going to make that light bulb of inspiration switch on and illuminate a story that I want to tell.  I love writing and storytelling as much as I do reading/viewing it.  I wrote my first book at the age of ten (a whopping thirty pages it was when I finished it) and in the twenty-five-plus years that have followed, have continued to write.  I always have some story knocking around in my head.  My purpose for this blog is to write a little something regularly about these stories, the ones of my life, the ones moving around inside my head, the ones I've read or watched.  So, sit back and enjoy--I'm glad you are here!

And so this, on my inaugural post, I thought I'd share some of the more inspirational quotes I've come across on writing and the writing process.

“Telepathy, of course.”  -Stephen King, from his book, On Writing, giving his thoughts on what writing is, exactly.

To tell you the truth, when I first read that statement, I thought it was a cop out.  What an easy, short, simple answer.  Then, though, after I finished reading it, a funny thing happened—it stayed with me.  I turned it over in my mind, considered it, and turned it over again.  I do this a lot—dwell on things and consider them.  Sometimes that’s a good thing, sometimes not.  But, in this case I’ll say it is because in all honesty, these words, to me, communicate exactly what writing is.  Think about it--when we read something, we are, literally, “reading” what came from the mind of someone else.  That person is projecting his or her thoughts into our minds.   As King calls it later in that same chapter, the readers, have a “meeting of the minds” with an author when they read his/her work.   They may not see things or characters exactly as the author saw them in his/her mind, but they still see the overall picture.  Nice?  I think so. 

"Sometimes it’s so hard to find what it is I’m trying to say.  People think you can turn creativity on and off, but it’s not like that.  It just kind of comes out, a mash-up of all these things you collect in your mind.  You never know when it’s going to happen, but when it does, it’s like magic.  It’s just that simple, and it’s just that hard."  -Gwen Stefani

"I feel the same way about it that I do about running.  I can run five or six miles three or four times a week, and I hate it . . . But when I get done with it, I feel better.  I’m relaxed and peaceful and calm, and it’s nice.  And I feel the same way about writing.  I don’t like writing.  I like having written."   -Keith Lee Morris

"I remembered that I could see every piece of broken glass on the side of the road . . . I could see the swoop of the telephone wire, I could see every pine needle on every tree, and this was drug free!  The writing had put me in some sort of state of alertness, awakeness, and higher awareness that I didn’t think was possible.  And I was twenty-two at the time and I didn’t know what I was going to do, but I knew that whatever I do, I gotta keep doing this because for the first time in my life, I felt like Andre, whoever the hell he is.  I felt like me."  -Andre Dubus, III

Writing is hard work.  There are days when even getting started is torture.  I will sit there and think for hours, sometimes (no, I'm not exaggerating).  The cursor on the screen will blink and blink, taunting me.   Every idea that comes to mind I immediately dismiss and when I finally do put fingers to keyboard, I find myself deleting words or entire scenes every few minutes.  Those days, I’m filled with irritability and depression that whatever talent I thought I had is going to waste, or maybe doesn’t exist anymore.

But then there are times when the exhaustion is wonderful.  The world is clearer, and I call myself a writer.  These are the days when the muse and the characters seemingly pave out a path of words for me.  I know the story I want to tell and how I want to tell it.  I can crank out ten pages at a time without pause and it’s lovely and when I’m done, there is the knowledge, not just the feeling, that I’ve written something good, that I’m me, and I’m doing what I was meant to do. 

So, there you are—a glimpse into the mind of a writer.  There are days when I love doing it, and days when I hate doing it.  There are days when I know what I’ve written works and days when I know I’ve got my work cut out for me if I want what I’m writing to work.  I’m always thinking and always exhausted in a good or bad way, but I keep on doing it just the same.  Why?  Oftentimes there's no choice in the matter, but mainly because it's what I do.  I love stories, and I love telling them and whether that process comes easily or with teeth gnashing and hair pulling, it’s all worth it to me in the end.