Project: Writers [un]Block!

I'm a book person. I've always been a book person. From the time I was old enough and strong enough to hold it up, I'm told, I've had my nose stuck in one. I live vicariously through the characters in the worlds my favorite authors [really, ANY authors.. I'll read anything] have created and for hours at a time, everything else ceases to exist.

When I was younger, if you'd asked me or anyone who knew me what I wanted to be, I/they would've replied either "a Vet" or "a Writer".. and honestly the Vet thing was a phase that passed as soon as I realised I had to do more than just play with the fuzzy animals and occassionally there'd be blood [eww!] involved. For years I was involved in Roleplay and Writing Clubs, I shunned the outside -- content with the world I and my friends had created from nothing but text and our imagination. I lived and breathed these characters, I knew my favorite characters responses to any question even better than I knew my own, really.

I would stay up, night after night, living on 2-3 hours sleep just so that I could push my creativity a little further. I wrote at school during lunch, I wrote during classes that were not designed for writing [sorry maths class, you suck!], I wrote on the bus on the way home. Half of what I wrote was garbage, but it just came so freely and easily that I could just cut out the bad bits later, if I even bothered to edit something old instead of just writing something completely new.

Somewhere along the way though I got lost. I found "real life" friends, I became interested in parties and video games and TV, I got a job -- and a boyfriend! I stopped living so much in my online bubble, I stopped carrying a notepad with me everywhere. I lost a part of me that I'm not sure will ever completely return. It became harder and harder for me to just sit down and write. There was no "flow". So eventually, I just stopped trying. Other than a few half-hearted blogs here and there, and the occassional spot of poetry I haven't seriously written anything since I left highschool. And that's sad. And wrong. And it's going to change!

A few days ago I received a book I'd ordered called "Everything I know about Writing" - by John Marsden [author of the popular Tomorrow When The War Began series (one of my favorite series of all time, by the way)]. This was a book I'd read in my teens, curled away in the corner of the highschool library somewhere and I'd remembered enjoying it. . so on impulse [I received a gift voucher for there for my birthday] I purchased it!

At the end of the book there's a segment called "600 Writing Topics" and these are sorted into categories such as quickies, discursive, poetry, personal, limits, letters, etc. Basically it's a bunch of one liners and the idea is either to answer the question or to use the line as inspiration. I've decided I'm going to complete the list and I've invited a few friends to try it out with me. And if anyone who reads this is interested in maybe giving it a go feel free to comment with your responses! I'm not sure how often I'm going to do these segments -- there are a few I want to tackle immediately so they might come more frequently in the beginning and then slow down to a once a week thing afterward, or I might really enjoy it and it'll become daily.. I don't know I haven't really ironed out the details.

Anyway, I'm going to make a new post for my first question because this one is already years long. I'm trying to think of a snappy name for it, but my 'working name' for now is "Project Writers [un]Block!" [or PWuB I guess for short] and is extremely subject to change.

I'm excited!

xx. A.