Doubt is a Four Letter Word

The web is great in many ways. If you want to learn how to do something and you know how to search for it you can learn... for free! But the problem is how do you know which path to take. Story first or structure first? Force writing or wait for the muse?

I've been both encouraged and discouraged from writing. The main doubt is: Do I have the discipline and/or desire to sit down for long periods of time and write every day? To be honest I can answer to desire. No I do not desire to sit around every day and write. Sure when the muse hits it's easy to sit all day and write. But when she's out of town forget it.

So now we come to discipline. If we are to look at my track record, again we come to a resounding "no". But I am capable of discipline although I've always been in denial of the ability. I prefer passion but passion is a shallow cup when unfilled. Discipline it is. Goals to be set and met. Plan your work and work it girl.

Lucky for me I have to teach martial arts at least a few times a week which prevents me from getting too sedentary. And writing prevents me from over training. If you're reading between the lines you may be able to discern that I am challenged by balance.

So it is now later in life that I start to look toward discipline as a new way of doing things. Passion be damned - get 'er done! Doubt is a four letter word... if you don't count the silent "b"... what I'm trying to say here is that "Doubt is a dirty word!"

To help make my muse jealous I purchased a screen writing program called Dramatica. It's not a "simple" program to use at first but once you master the extensive terminology and can answer the predetermined questions coherently, you can use it to produce a story from start to finish. I would call this more of a story analysis program but again, once you understand the program it's use becomes more apparent... supposedly. I'm still trying to master it and I've only tried it twice. The program is a mere 200 bucks... doh!!! However Melanie Ann Phillips (co-creator of Dramatica) created a simpler inexpensive program called Storywearer which can be found on the website. I don't own it nor have I tried it but it seems like a good straight forward creative approach compared to Dramatica. Melanie is graciously accessible and offers an extensive host of on-line writing tools.