Creative juice

I really am trying to be a good awfur type. Over the last few weeks I have 'guest spotting' at various writerly things and trying to convince the local population that writing really is a serious business.

The ones I enjoyed most were class-napping two creative writing courses (apart from a recent signing - thank you 'Tranquility').

I looked around the table at both these events and smiled inside. I was sat on the other side a few years ago, listening to the trials and tribulations of a script writer. As I talked to the class I realised that I was now imparting the same doom and gloom that he had - hard, lonely work with about a 1% chance of ever getting published. The pitfalls, the rejections, the fight to keep going, the fight to write anything in the first place, all tripped glibly off my tongue and it seems I failed to put them off at all!

I studied the faces, listened to their voices and answered their questions as best I could. For some it wouldn't matter how thick I spread the jam of doom and for one or two, the creative juice ran deep in their blood. They had fire in their eyes and nothing I could have said would have made them hesitate for a second. They had passion and that all important need to communicate to the world with words.

I think I was the same, that same need to keep bashing my head against the nail infested wall. A mere writer who was telling me that I should celebrate my rejections and embrace the loneliness was never going to stop me doing something that I loved (read obsessed here).

I raise a glass to those who are starting out, drink deep of that creative juice, bitter as it may be at the beginning, the fine wine that awaits is all the sweeter.

pee ess - just had a look in the mirror. I can't see the fire but I suppose it could be hiding behind those two bloodshot eyes.

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