On Writing

A great post on the Art and Craft of writing by Marc Schuster, author of The Singular Exploits of Wonder Mom and Party Girl (buy it, read it) and classmate of mine at the Greatest High School in the World.

I've often thought of trying my hand at writing fiction, but always punked out, intimidated. I've read that some authors make grand outlines of the whole story before writing a single word, while others just kind of wing it as they go. So I guess my biggest obstacle is not knowing exactly how to go about writing something as daunting as a novel.

Then I come up against feelings of inadequacy, wondering why anyone would care enough to invest the time to read anything I would come up with. I'm sure people wouldn't mind if what I would produce would be good enough, but this makes me put enormous pressure on myself. Anytime I start thinking about any potential project, I ultimately come to the conclusion that either the idea isn't good enough for anyone to care about, or the idea may be a good one but I don't have the talent to craft it properly, to make it worthy of someone else's time and effort.

Anyway, I've decided to start with short stories. I'll see how that goes.