A letter to the 15 Minute Ficlets comm

Dear 15 minute ficlets,

I only just got to know you and now you’re leaving me forever!  Before you go, let me just say a few words.

A few months ago, I was in a pretty dull place with my writing. Sure, I still did it - but where was the love?  Where was the obsession?  Where was the driving urge to find the perfect-sized paragraph or to see if I could make a shape out of a story by varying the length of sentences?

Missing in action, that’s where.  I went to uni to study writing and before I knew it, my love of words had vanished in a skirmish with writing-out-of-obligation somewhere in my second year.

I really hoped that love of writing would turn up again some day.  In the meantime, I got by somehow.  I even managed to write an entire first draft of Black Fiddle without it.  Sometimes, I thought it had come back, but it turns out I was wrong.

It didn’t truly come back until I wrote that first ficlet just a few short months ago.  You took all the obligation and expectations away and just let me write for fifteen minutes.  You let me write in whatever genre I wanted.  You told me it didn’t have to be perfect.  You didn’t mark it afterwards and make subtly derogatory comments about how you wished I’d write a proper story, instead of lowering myself to “genre”.

You let me dance about with words and get to know them in a more casual setting... and I can’t thank you enough for that.  Even though I’ll be bidding you a sad farewell in May, I’ll always cherish our time spent together.  After all, I suspect it’s already going to have a pretty major impact on my writing life from here on in.

Thank-you.  You might be “just another LJ community” but you’ve managed to point my writing life in a much brighter and happier direction.

My eternal gratitude,
Katie(foolery).