A Writer's Epiphany

What exactly is an Epiphany? A great realization? What can it be applied to? And what exactly is a watershed moment? A turning point in one’s life? Can it be applied to an event before you are sure that event has really made a change?

I’m asking the universe because I’m struggling to understand what happened. Suddenly I realized I can’t write even though I can. I can’t tell a story even though I tell lots of them. It was a hard moment, and thankfully it didn’t last long. I picked up some of my writings and instantly I began to pick out the flaws. The clichés, the tropes, the archetypes. All would be just fine if I could truly make them my own.

I joined a forum. The threads are a tad bewildering but there are some really great creatives in the Critique Circle. Critiquing other people’s works has been eye opening. Some writers I’ve critiqued are still growing, others completely dwarf me. Reading their stories has allowed me to see the strengths and weaknesses in my own works. Trying to offer a little help to them has been rewarded by positive responses.

I bought a book called The Linchpin Writer. It’s taken a great deal of fortitude not to swallow the book down in one gulp. I’m reading chapter by chapter and pondering. The book is simple, direct and filled with empathy. Some of the advice seems so obvious that I can’t believe I couldn’t see it before. When I reread my own writing, it was like a fog had lifted. I could see the flaws. Not the grammar and punctuation which can be fixed by a copy edit, the subtleties that can really make or break a story.

I think I’ll be blogging about the forum and the manual again soon.