write on!

i just wrote a piece of fiction. honest to god fiction.

it was tough, it was easy, it was fascinating. i had ideas about which way the story was going to go but then it'd surprise me.

this was my first time to write fiction as an adult. when i was little i used to make up stories about neighborhood cats and put them in a paper i "published" called Good Mews. i also did all the fabulous artwork. when i was a teenager, in my star trek obsessed days, i started a trek story once but didn't get very far. as an adult i've done all kinds of writing...except fiction. even though ideas for it would tickle my mind, i'd never sit down and just do it. i know some of you relate to this.

anyway, as i said, i've been writing more since last week. none of it was fiction, unless you count my dreams. even though my mind made those up, it feels like cheating to call that fiction, i guess because they're not intentional. but today, one of my new writing groups sent out a prompt/exercise that really got me. it was to write a brief piece that included or began with "The sight of smoke...".

to be honest the first thing i thought of was my paternal grandmother, whose love affair with nicotine eventually led to her death (lung cancer). but i didn't write about her at all. instead i found myself in a street cafe, at night, watching a stranger smoke cigarettes.

the mind, sometimes it annoys the shit out of me. but sometimes, i love it to death. today we're in the love category, because i love not knowing where it will take me.