Writing is Fun: D&D and Remembering to Play

Writing is work. People build whole identities and businesses around how to manage it as a job, sell it as a product, market yourself as a creator. It’s long hours alone. It’s wondering when something will make it through. It’s time and energy.
But it’s also fun.
Stories are fun.
And sometimes – maybe in the midst of a global pandemic, or a creative slump, or a dim hour of blank pages – it helps to find a way to remind yourself how great storytelling can be.
So,  you get some books.

You band together with some friends.

 You learn some rules, watch some livestreams – and then you do what you do best.

You worldbuild.

You narrate. 

You do your best to hook your audience and keep them with you – once a week, every week. 

For a month. For a year. 

For two. For three.

And a little at a time, almost without realizing it, you get better at writing.
The form teaches you to relax your grip on structure. It reminds you to trust your instincts. It forces you to follow through on an idea that you cannot edit away.

Your friends make character choices that never would've occurred to you. In the pressure-cooker of improv,  you learn to invent complex motives and dramatic reactions in an instant.
​You perfect a voice, a tone, a humor that fits your audience.
But most of all, you watch them care. And when you get down to the most important thing a story can do, a funny thing happens.

You get carried away. 

The story grows in its own directions, without your permission. It becomes a living thing.
​You don’t write the notes because you have to; you write to see the looks on their faces at the next big twist or  betrayal. You write to wonder how they’ll surprise you and escape at the last second. You write to weep with them when they fall, and get up again.

It goes from being just a game to becoming art. 

painting by Ashleigh Gill

painting by Ashleigh Gill

Art that’s fun.

Like it always has been.