There's a familiarity I slip into once I finally sit down to write for the day. Something like the way my feet feel in my slippers, or the way it feels when you finally come in for the day and know you won't need to leave the house again until tomorrow. That's how I feel when I sit down and write. There's a real sense of comfort. My fingertips caressing and nudging the keys on this board, the way the words form a split second after I expressed them in my mind; the silence, if I'm lucky, of the house around me; inhaling the strong black coffee that sits at my left on the old clock face coaster.

I feel this sense of comfort, too, when I sit to write in a cafe and hear the crack of the spine of my handmade journal as I open to where I've last written. I smooth the page, mark the date and let my thoughts go. I think I would write even if I never gained anything from it, at all. Yes, I enjoy the response of others. It's a big part of the writing experience, to see how your words touch people. But there's a real joy in simply creating words for yourself, to sit and let them spin out like sitting at a spinning wheel. The thread can be as singular as my desire to be here, or as complex as a deadline or group participation can make it. Those threads spin out a multi-textured cord with obvious interest to any reader.

And like spinning yarn each kind of writing brings its own set of challenges. To pick up the few fibres and begin to feed them into the spindle is similar to knowing where to start for the writer. But once you've done it you're away. There can be false starts, but usually only when we're being fussy. Any place is a good place to start. The thread can be chopped away if it's not to our liking later. There's the wear on your fingertips. The very act of spinning the sometimes coarse materials onto the wheel can cause the fingers to feel tender from overuse. We've all experienced that stiffening of fingers from holding a pen too long or using a keyboard for a long time. I have a lump on the middle finger of my right hand where the pen rubs as I write. The lump has gone down a little since I've had the baby. The lump was also worse while I attended school.

I'm not really sure my allegory of spinning and writing are very good. I've personally never spun anything other than a story. Some part of me craves to give spinning a go. I gather it's the same part of me that wants to sew and dye fabrics, that wants to sketch and paint, that wants to mould clay and carve stamps from rubbers (erasers for my US readers). I've always enjoyed crafts, but tend to want to get down to their grassroots level. Something in me must know the very in and out of every aspect of the endeavour I'm about to embark on. Although I've learnt I simply have more fun if I just start doing it. I read all the info I can find, but to actually do the thing, that's where the real learning comes.

And to make mistakes, do it the wrong way, or muck it up entirely, is still good. It may be costly, which is disappointing, but the mistake made is a lesson learnt and usually never repeated. That's the same with writing. No matter how much you read and discover from books, websites and other people, there's nothing like learning it yourself. When I did the challenge for Nanowrimo each of the last three years I found I learnt so much more about novels than from reading any one book on writing. The books have been helpful, for sure. None of the info was wasted. But there is really something in the actual fact of just sitting and writing.

No one else can teach you to find your own voice, or style or give the slant you give on any idea. No one else can produce the vision of your novel and the story you have to tell. The only way it's ever going to happen is to write and write. Write what works and what doesn't work. Write your characters into situations you'll never use in the finished product. Write dumb things, smart things, silly and fun things. Put characters into situations you failed at. Have them make the decisions you couldn't. Have them live the life you wanted to. Empower them with skills you've always wanted, yet make them fail sometimes, too. We've all failed, but none of us failed to learn something from our failures, even if the lesson came too late.

Hope this all made sense tonight.