Day 130: on returning to fiction

I have felt a return to writing fiction bubbling below the surface for the past few months. I have even gone back to a story I had previously written and done some editing on it. Yesterday, though, the pot finally boiled over, and I called up Word on my tablet, and began to write fiction again. I. am. writing. fiction. again.

I would say that this would be a bit of a departure from the past, but thinking about it a bit more, that's not true. I am equally comfortable writing longhand with a pen on paper or typing words onto a blank screen. Overall, I might have done more of the former kind of writing, as I have easily half a dozen steno pads (the smaller notebooks bound at the top that are used for taking shorthand) that are full of notes, snippets, and short stories. I also write my Morning Pages in longhand on loose leaf paper held together in a large blue three ring binder. However, in my college years, and for a time afterward, I wrote stories directly into a word processor or computer, so I can't really say I prefer one modality over the other.

I have no target number of words or pages in mind, nor can I say for certain that this material will ever see the light of day. It would definitely need to be researched for accuracy in the details, but I can worry about that later. I'm writing the "origin stories" of a pair of characters that arose for me at least ten years ago, if not more, in what would be an "historical fiction" story, should I choose to pursue it. It's not fantasy, as I don't envision those traditional tropes - mythical beasties, magick, hidden realms - popping up in the story, but it definitely isn't science fiction either, which is what I have written since I was in my teens. So it's a good exercise in stretching ye olde writing wings.

Right now I am delighted that I have been returning to older, familiar ways of Creating that I have done in the past (fiction writing, collage). I am throwing back the storm doors that were locked during the turbulent years and bringing out aspects of myself that had taken cover during the worst of my mental and emotional turbulence. There is still some rough ground to cover before the end of this part of the odyssey, but I am recovering some bits of myself that I had feared I had lost, and it feels very good, on this day. :)