The Pittsburgh Writer Along with all the other changes currently taking place in my life, I’m now seriously reconsidering my writing career as a whole. No, this doesn’t mean I’m going to stop writing all together. In fact, quite the opposite. It means a shift is taking place in my world, and it’s one that is leaning more towards nonfiction.
“All fiction has some base elements of pure, unadulterated facts..”
As much as I absolutely adore coming up with characters, settings and doing the research, I find myself enjoying all the work that goes into setting the scene than actually writing the book. And I have to wonder if fiction is truly the genre for me.
In fact, as I look back on the stats for this website alone, I’ve basically written a full length nonfiction, erm, novel(?) over the last seven years with a combined blog post word count of 173,000 words.
Have I ignored my true calling all this time, or did I just fancy myself a fiction writer while purposefully ignoring my true passions? And how does one even get involved in the nonfiction writing community?
“With historical research, I find a strange
sort of comfort in discovery.”
As life would have it, blogging IS, in fact, my passion. The stats confirm what I’ve wrestled with for a very long time. I never could finish any story I start, but historical research certainly can have a beginning point and an end point. But it can also carry on for years as one discovers those tiny nuggets previously unknown.
My website changed. My work life has changed. And now I can sense my writing priorities changing as well. If you’d asked me months ago if I ever thought I’d give up concocting all the scenarios I could get my characters into, I’d have looked at you like you were the insane party. Now? Now I am very happy with my decision to stick with history. With historical research I find a strange sort of comfort in discovery.
Seriously…I don’t know why I’ve ignored this side of writing for so long. Heck, nonfiction has as much merit as fiction, and all fiction has some base elements of pure, unadulterated facts. If I can contribute that knowledge to someone else’s writing journey, then I’ll be a very happy nonfiction explorer indeed.
“If I can contribute that knowledge to someone else’s writing journey, then I’ll be a very happy nonfiction explorer indeed.”
It seems to me a decision has been made by the end of this very thought-driven blog post.
It’s time for this Pittsburgh-based writer to switch gears completely and take a full blown dive into the world of nonfiction. What does this mean for Project Star & Sea? Well, it’s officially a shelved project, but that doesn’t mean that a short story can’t come from it!
Now I have one thing to ask of you: please have some patience with me as I figure out the newest layer of my writing journey, and I hope you’ll stick with me as it happens! And who knows? Maybe you’ll learn something you never knew before.
I love the sound of this! You love history, especially local history, and I’m sure you could write volumes from all your research. Lots of authors write both fiction and nonfiction, so you can always go back to fiction for some stories.
Thank you! I don’t know what took me so long to just pull the plug on fiction for now. I think it was mostly because that’s been part of my life for so long and perhaps was letting myself and others down by rerouting my purpose.
I also think I’m ready to spread my nonfiction wings, as my blog posts are always a bit more conversational as well. I think that’s what a lot of nonfiction is like these days, and would be easier to transition between the blog and the writing.
Consistency is my best friend. And I love the idea, too, of having continuity between the two.