Writing Wednesday

I think I am going to start a Writing Wednesday.
I will  blog about writing on Wednesdays, and who knows, maybe on other days as well.
If you like to write, join me on Wednesdays and put up your own blog post about writing, too.

As many of you know, I like to write.
My grammar is not perfect. . .
my rhyme is sometimes off. . .
but as one of my favorite quotes proclaims "A professional writer is an amateur who didn't quit."


I have been dabbling with poetry this morning. I have many poems on my hard drive. These are poems that I thought were good, but when I bring them up on the screen, after they have been out of sight and out of mind for many months, I see lots of room for improvement. That is one thing about writing, if you continue to write, you will improve. Practice makes perfect.  I will never be perfect. . .  but I don't want to be. Perfection takes out the challenge and fun out of writing and improving your craft.

My family sometimes wonder why I continue to change and edit my stories. They think the first draft is the way it should be. They think if you have to keep changing  it, that you must not be a good writer. How wrong that is. In my opinion, a good writer is one who knows how to edit and how to get it right. The first draft is sometimes just getting your idea down on paper, kind of like the appetizer for a meal. Then you go back and add the meat and potatoes and maybe discard the scraps that are not needed. That may sound like a funny way to put it, but I think it kind of tells how it is.

I have been editing my middle grade story this past week. AGAIN. I now have it ready to send out to publishers. AGAIN.

Writing and getting published is a slow process. It is very hard for people to comprehend that from start to finish it can be years before your story is seen by the eyes of the reading public. I am an impatient person and the waiting is the hardest part for me.

AN EMPTY BARN

by Janet F. Smart

An empty barn,  an opened door

Snowflakes scattered upon the floor.

An empty barn from times gone by

Sitting beneath the snowy sky.

If walls could talk, what would they say

Of those who toiled here yesterday,

and tarried in its loft at night,

Lit only by dim lantern light?

I leave you with a writing prompt. Find a favorite picture you have taken and write a short poem about it.