Activity

@hope-ann I really appreciated your balanced comment. Also, I just have to say it, your goal/approach to writing – bringing to light the unseen hope, and showcasing that there is victory even in the midst of sorrow – it’s a beautiful, transcendent goal. I sincerely wish you success.

Thank you for your comment about Endbringer. It has had a soft spot in my heart for a while – even though it is more allegorical than most of my other writing – so I’m glad that it has (so far) fared well under the eyes of those who are not me. 😛

@briannastorm Thank you for understanding!

Now… writing for fun is, well, quite fun. I love sitting down with a blank piece of paper, having literally no idea what is going to happen, and then writing a scene, a bit of dialogue, a character sketch – whatever. There’s something uniquely powerful about the sense of creation that can be achieved when you do this. That feeling isn’t there in the same way when you are carefully crafting the next scene or chapter in your story. It’s there, sure, but not in the same way.

When you write something small for fun, it’s like you finish and just sit back with that funny half-proud, half-shy smile, thinking, “I just made something.”

And then you look over it and it’s probably not more than half-good, but you still kinda like it so you show it to your writing friends and see what they think about it…

Ahem. I ramble.

As you can tell, I love writing for fun. I think it is a great exercise of a writer’s ability to create in the moment. Writing on the fly like that might be a nightmare for  all you plotters out there, but it’s a joy-ride for a pantser like me, and can even be the trigger that gets me in the mood to write more seriously in my current WIP.

The only downside I can see with writing for fun is that it may detract from your other writing projects. Other than that, I think it is a fun way to exercise and improve your technical skills on things that don’t carry the emotional and personal weight that a more serious-minded piece of writing brings with it. When we get caught up in making our ‘real’ story as good as it can be (which is an admirable goal, and should not be lost sight of!), we may yet be subconsciously stifling our own creative juices.

Despite that, I do sometimes get the feeling that writing for fun isn’t ‘enough’ – that all of my writing should be more carefully and intentionally written to showcase Truth. And while this is definitely an issue of conscience that each author should work through on their own, I try to ensure that I’m still being purposeful by seeing it as a challenge to weave truth into my ‘joy-writing’ even though it is entirely spontaneous. By doing this, as I learn to think on my feet pencil keyboard(?) better, my hope is that the principles and themes of God’s truth will come with greater ease and readiness to be woven into any piece of writing that I make.

How do some of you guys approach writing for fun?