Once Upon a Time...

Four great words that give a writer the freedom to ...Be anyone...Be anywhere...Do anything in any fantasy world they create. Oops...Maybe not.
Last night, I reluctantly removed myself from my small bastion of creativity, where I've been stoically attempting to complete the final book in a three book series, to attend my writers Guild’s monthly meeting. Thinking the program would be about compacting our paragraphs, I prepared my own rebuttal.
I was not really surprised when John, our newly elected guild president, decided that a lengthy oration (he’s really good at those) on the three publications that he considers to be the Holy Trinity of writing. First was the book on grammar he kept from his high school days, Warriner’s English Grammar and Composition, How to Read a Book, by Adler and Van Doren and The First Five Pages by Noah Lukeman, would be more beneficial. The first and most important book, of course, has been out of print for years. It figures. The second and third on John’s list. I have read already. But I found that Betsy Lerner’s Forest for the Trees, and Stephen King’s On Writing, provided more of an epiphany for me.
But all of that is beside the point. I did all of the usual and expected things, applauded the presentation, took a few moments to speak with fellow writers, exchanged some contact information with new attendees... Blah blah blah. It’s one I was walking out the door that that sort of Eureka moment hit me. Why, could I not just go back to Once Upon a Time. What happened to that spontaneous, jump in with both feet, ready for the adventure , girl I used to be? The sun was out there shining, but not on my face. Trees were falling in the forest and I was not there to hear them. I needed to go back to a time when writing was fun for me.
So if all the lengthy diatribe about the rules of creative writing, last night taught me anything, it was this.
I am such a schmuck, and taking myself way too...Seriously.