This simple truth speaks about our innate desire to create, to make something out of nothing, or rather to make something out of countless ideas and concepts floating in our minds. It is trivially easy to conjure some stories, characters or tropes in our heads, but the moment we try to transfer them into a physical world, either as words on paper or bytes in digital memory, they always lose some of their allure. It is a normal if frustrating process.

It is important to be aware of the fact that any story will always loose part of its magic when it takes a specific form. After all, stories in our minds are shapeless, limitless. They are always interesting. It is our job, as writers, to try and bring out as much of their original potential as we can, when we forge them into words, sentences, paragraphs and chapters. It is not an easy task, but a task we are responsible for. Sometimes it is a matter of deciding whether we feel ready to tell a certain story, or maybe we need to save it for another time. When stories live in our minds they are boundless, they can be anything anywhere. But once we write them down, they will never transform into something new. That finality can be intimidating — it certainly is for me.

Still, I am ready to share my stories knowing that I will not be able to convey everything I had hoped for. But I will be able to convey enough, and knowing that with each story written, my skills will improve and allow me to write better. Practice and perseverance goes a long way.

This is article no. 4 from the 100 Days To Offload series.