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The plot is a bit thick!

Writer's picture: Elizabeth ReeceElizabeth Reece

Writing – A simple task for complicated people.


(Irresistible FREE offer for new writers at the end!)


It doesn’t seem to matter what community I join. I am left with a familiar and comfortably uncomfortable sense that I am better off going it alone.


Of course, I know that’s not what I will do. I enjoy the quiet and embracing solitude but the best creative energy comes from connection. Connection to source and inspired by real, human, good old-fashioned conversations.


I need you people. With all your shortcomings and wonderful weirdness. Without you, I wouldn’t have anything to amuse myself with or to write about. By the way, if you have read any of my writing you will know that I take myself way too seriously while making myself the butt of my own wisecracks.


I recently became a published Author. A short story that serves as a preamble to my debut novel. A dream I had either forgotten about, or one that had never fully formed in my young mind before it had evolved into something I do remember. I wanted to read the News. I was told that to read the news, I must first become a journalist. In the 1970’s and 80’s this might have been true but it sounded OK to me. I would do that!


I didn’t do that. I did something else. Something far less interesting. Or at least, by my own adventurous standards.


I wrote my novel in isolation. I cared nothing for competition, comparison, structure or strategy. I just wrote it. It will be published in March and my writing has evolved significantly in the year since it was completed. If I had to write it again, I’d do it differently but it’s done. I’m not going to turn myself in knots rewriting until it’s a completely different proposition.


I passed chapters to acquaintances for feedback. Chosen because they are avid readers. Not writers. I did not put it on to writers’ groups chapter by chapter. I didn’t even know this was a ‘thing.’ I now know that there is a whole new world of writing groups on Facebook and LinkedIn and despite being a writer, whatever that means in a world full of people with ideas and a keyboard, I find myself, yet again, bemused and baffled by the diversity of the human brain.


Responding to those scribes who seek early validation for their credentials as a potential global star in the literary world of New York Times Best Sellers, one sage veteran states that this practice is the most effective method of self-sabotage. I couldn’t agree more.


Halfway through their first literary offering, having written nearly twenty thousand words, one writer has suddenly discovered the term ‘manuscript.’ In a panic, they consult Google to establish just what, exactly is, a manuscript! Upon receiving the results that Google diligently provided the budding writer returns to the hive mind to plead with us to clarify whether they must start all over again with a pen and paper.


Another novice wordsmith has decided against using AI to write their book for them but is, instead pretending AI is a human to stave off their crashing loneliness. Without friends (while referring to themselves as a ‘sensitive crybaby’) and because their family thinks they are crazy, they are discussing with AI, reader sensitivity to extreme violence and sexual content! I’ve seen it – should I say it so someone else can sort it?


When did the simple act of putting pen to paper become so very difficult for humans? Even tapping away at a typewriter or keyboard next to an open window like Angela Lansbury, beavering away at another ‘Murder She Wrote’ has become yet another form of contrived and calculated, blissful torture.


Not the simple pleasure that I enjoyed as a child.


Loneliness, isolation, distraction and disconnection are an epidemic. People reach for writing as a mechanism of self-expression with interesting and diverse motivations. My writing has always been cathartic, personal, humorous and with no intended audience. Now I write for my own healing, sanity and enjoyment first and with the hope that the message and cautionary tales will reach those who need to hear them the most.

We view everything with such a critical eye. Much like how I am viewing my new community and wondering where, if anywhere, do I belong?


I see imagination in abundance. I also see people with a desire to write, yet lacking the most basic credentials of the imagination, come to a group and ask us to spoon feed them ideas for stories that they can turn into e-books and make tons of money.


I delight and I despair.


There are many transitional reasons that people don’t, won’t or can’t write. The gap between desire and execution is filled with excuses. It boils down to one universal human issue – FEAR – and another very common neurodiversity being a chronic lack of imagination. This is where we must accept our differences, despite our desires and choose a new goal.


It’s YOUR party and you can write if you want to.


Just don’t torture yourself or your readers to do it. A manuscript is a great deal of work, especially if you type half of it and then decide to write it out again by hand. Just to be safe.

AI collects your innermost thoughts. It feels nothing for you personally. I expect there is a Fellowship support group out there struggling with a compulsive obsession to replace human connection with AI. A new Codependence Anonymous for those in recovery from a failed relationship with AI. The ultimate emotionally unavailable choice. Something pretending to be human. Much like the Narcissistic abuser in my Short Story.


(She Defies: Powerful Stories of Overcoming - https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0DTK428RZ)  

I definitely feel a deep dive into this topic somewhere in my future.



The Tricks of Trauma Bonding - Page 164  https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0DTK428RZ


Remember– the pen is definitely mightier than the keyboard when it comes to writing as an intervention for health and wellbeing.


And finally, anyone can cook, draw, write or play an instrument. As long as we have hands and the tools – we can do it. Not everyone is capable of the artistry that comes from a God given talent OR a  burning desire to apply diligence, persistence and consistency to achieving excellence.


If you don’t have either of these or an ability to do things just for enjoyment without the external validation (show me someone who does not need external validation over the age of three years old!) then save yourself a great deal of difficulty and internal disturbance and keep looking for that thing that gives you what writing does not.


Here endeth the lesson.


Irresistible Offer to get anyone moving in their writing journey….

If you fancy trying the L. King (2001) Best Possible Self Writing Intervention from Positive Psychology, please like, comment, share and subscribe to receive a free PDF Workbook.

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