Brain Yoga

I think my brain has been doing more stretches than a yoga practitioner. I know, that's a strange thing to say. There is a bit of background behind it, so here it goes.

I've been learning a lot about writing in the last month, but especially in the last couple of weeks. I've learned about immediacy when writing in third person (Don't ask me to explain it, because I don't understand it that well. I understand it well enough to do it, I hope.), how to turn a boring sentence into an interesting one, a couple of tricks for changing passive writing into active writing, etc. Most of this is stuff I've been hearing about for a while and could see in other people's writing, but it took until recently for it to click for my writing. I think I'm writing much better now, though I'm obviously biased. I do know that everything I've learned has me looking at some of my writing and cringing. I thought it was so good, then all this stuff clicked in my mind. Now I know it's not that great. The stories themselves may be good, but the writing? Not so much.

So, now I'm doing my brain yoga, writing a new story as a way to practice everything I've learned, and trying to work up the courage to rewrite some old stuff. If it's true that writers never quit learning, and I'm pretty sure that'll be the case with me, I'll probably look back on my "best" work forty years from now and wonder how I ever thought it could be good. Hopefully, I'll also wonder how it ever got published.