Where Do You Start?

All great adventures need a beginning.

I’d written a couple drafts for this blog before I left work, and going back on them: Jesus Christ man, it’s like I was trying to write business cases or something.

Turns out, that’s what I’ve been doing for years.  Lots of culturally sensitive, just-so pieces of writing.  Business cases.  Policy papers.  All with beautifully coiffed language designed to not offend fellow G-men, or their bosses.

My beginning this week has been learning how to write again.  Stories.  It’s hard – I wrote a chapter for my book, and threw it in the trash.  Re-wrote it, made it longer, gave the people character – now it almost sounds like something in a novel, rather than a memo written to justify another memo.

There’s stirring in the crypt; my inner child is getting closer to rising from the grave.  If I know him at all – and let’s say that I do – he probably wants to say something using his own voice for a change.

It’s hard!  Seriously.  I’ve been trying to write using other people’s voices for as long as I can remember.  It’s fun seeing this dead kid speak again.