Continue to Write Through Your Failures
Writing failures are like spilling your drink while dancing around the fire. You just keep dancing.
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I’ve heard the sizzle of spilled drink many times, and then filled my cup again.
I was a painter once, for many years everyday life was about getting up and going to my studio, painting and working on canvasses for the next exhibition.
One day, I’d had had enough of painting, I decided that these characters in my head needed to come out and play.
I am glad that I finally stopped thinking about it, and just started to write.
I’ve never regretted sitting down and starting to write.
My idea back then, was to write about this Gypsy guy from Málaga, he wanted to become a businessman in Madrid, to make money, experience wealth and all the mainstream trappings that go with it.
I began writing, allowing him to tell his story. He ran away with me in a long winded dance around the camp fire.
I ended up writing chapters that were really short stories about Gito, my character. I loved him, I miss him. He was so full of life and taught me many things about writing.
He, Gito, taught me that I needed to have a pretty good idea about what Gito was going to do to get into business. I knew he had a broken heart, and there was a businessman in Madrid who who would become Gito’s nemesis.
But, I didn’t have a goal to write towards, I was enjoying the dance of words on the paper too much to take structures and progression in the story too seriously.
It took a while, but I soon realized that main characters need to have a burning desire to get somewhere or change something in the story. My characters didn’t have those things — none of them.
I hated the idea that I’d write about Gito wanting money for greed’s sake, that would guarantee a boring story. That’s a fact. Money is not power, characters need to empower themselves to change, money is just leverage towards power.
