“We’ve been pulling out the nails that hold up everything you’ve known.”

I haven’t done lengthy creative writing in a very long time. Sure, a couple pages of flash fiction here and there, occasionally I indulge in writing some absolutely rotten poetry, but for the past four years, my creative writing has taken a backseat to being a journalist.

But journalism requires creativity as well. You have to know how to talk to people to get the right quotes, the interesting story versus the story everyone else is going to get. You have to put it together in a way that garners interest from the public. I can sit down and write a 1,500 word feature story on establishing, maintaining and repairing credit, then turn around and write a 750 word editorial on animal rights, then the next day cover an awards ceremony for a Vietnam veteran and turn it into a story that gets picked up by external news sources before I even promote it. One of my recent favorites was a story I did on a Marine saving a three-year-old from drowning. The Red Cross didn’t know this happened, read my story and ended up giving this Marine their annual military hero award.

I was a damn good combat correspondent. (It’s not cocky — it’s confident.)

So maybe I need to start interviewing my characters. Maybe I just need to create a person in my head and hold imaginary conversations with them. I can picture a teacher who’s sitting in a jail cell and just imagine the interview I would conduct if I were still in the newspaper business. Maybe I just need to be schizophrenic!

This WarmUp is really giving me a chance to dive back into creative writing, and I appreciate the things it’s teaching me about myself. I love to write, but this is different than what I’ve grown used to. Now I just need to get back into the creative writing habits I was in before I joined the military.

What a rollercoaster this is turning out to be! I understand grammar and storytelling, but I had completely forgotten just how different it feels to create something not from interviews and observations, but instead, just from my mind.

I love it.