“Writing: It starts at the keyboard, and it ends at the far corners of the universe.” — Paako, From Vincent Lowry, Constellation Chronicles: The Lost Civilization of Aries

Long ago I came across this quote on Twitter and it got me thinking. Whenever I sit down to write something, I usually don’t have much of a plan. I may have a topic or two to touch on, but most often it all begins with a single sentence or phrase. Then I just let the words take me where they will.

This quote also got me to thinking about how writing can often be an even more arduous and treacherous journey than reading the finished product. While at times the words fly freely from my fingers, many times this isn’t the case. Many times my thought process will shift while I’m writing a piece.

Whenever I’m working on a piece of fiction, I always have this nagging need to be unpredictable, to the point that my stories often go off the rails. But when I’m working on nonfiction, I don’t seem to have the same problem. Usually I can tie everything up enough to make it somewhat complete at least, even if somewhere along the way I diverge from my original purpose; many essays often sprout into two or more as I work through them.

Whether or not I find myself lost among the field of words I’ve cultivated, the beautiful thing about writing is that through the process I always learn something about myself. Often, I realize I don’t know as much about something as I’d previously believed. I also tend to create new characters, places, situations, and ideas that end up being part of some other later piece.

Really, one shouldn’t try to separate creative writing from nonfiction, because creativity is what fuels the greatest writing. There is such a thing as creative nonfiction, of course, but that’s not what I mean. I’ve been trained, like many writers, to think that I have to keep the informative article type pieces I’d write entirely separate from my often rather odd imaginings. 

A few years back, I urged myself to not let myself do that anymore. It took me several more, around the time of putting together Edit of the Art, that I finally resolved to promise myself that I’d be much more consistent with the cadence of my creative efforts.

Naturally, I’ve always had a strong urge to make my writing really go places. But I don’t mean writing to make piles of money, or become famous, or anything relating to vanity; still I know I’ve been guilty of the lattermost time and again. Whatever the case, for too long my creative work would be stuck in neutral while my nonfiction writing would start feeling boring and stale. There must be a compromise, of course, by choosing a lane and staying in it for the long haul. 

Now that I’ve crossed the thresholds from writing for pleasure to writing for pay to writing for purpose, I have a much clearer idea of what I wish for my words to accomplish. Dear readers, I wish that my words should take you on special journeys that you couldn’t have predicted, to visit the stranger corners of my mind that even I have rarely stopped by. 

Since life is unpredictable, so should the writing. In my younger years, I would write like I was just going to the store to buy some milk and bread, and end up going on an epic intergalactic journey. I always prefer to leave myself open to the wonderful possibilities of infinity, even what may appear on the surface to be blatantly absurd. You never know where the words will take you, after all, and stranger things certainly have happened.