Why do I write--or not?

This morning when I was on my treadmill reading (well reading while I was walking), what I was reading made me think about my writing (or lack thereof). Among other books, I am currently reading Writing Begins with the Breath: Embodying Your Authentic Voice by Larraine Herring. Larraine is a writer, author and teacher. In the chapter titled Self-Awareness she talks about how you should consider why you write by turning the question around and considering why you don't write or why you procrastinate in your writing.

That got me to thinking and had I not still had a half hour left on the treadmill, I would have sat right down and written my thoughts on this. But instead I avoided the act of writing by prioritizing my exercise above my writing. So why do I do that? Is the exercise more important than the writing? Perhaps for my physical and future wellness the exercise is something I should not push to the side. But for my mental wellness I need to write. Larraine explains in another chapter that writing is just like showing up for exercise. Weight loss and good health will occur if I keep showing up for the exercise and writing will take me places if only I'd keep showing up.

So why do I not put my writing up at the top of my priority list? Perhaps it is because the writing is mine, the writing is for me, the writing is my joy,release, escape. And because I have just recently, early into my 60s made time for me. It is a long story, briefly covered in some of my other post (I think). A story of a caretaker and someone that always tried to please everyone else but herself. That was me. And so perhaps that was the void I never could fill. Perhaps there is some truth in the words "to thine own self be true". Only in brief moments throughout the last 45 years or so have I taken more than just a day or two (perhaps a week) to be true to myself and to acknowledge the voice crying inside me, the spirit calling out my name from some far off place, the aching that will not go away, the burning need to write. That voice, that calling,keeps showing up, keeps begging to be recognized as real and important, will not let go no matter how far I push it aside. And now it demands to be heard. It has broken free from the depths of my being and is racing through every vessel, every pore, every thought. It will no longer take no for an answer. It will no longer be pushed aside while I take care of someone else.

The line at the top of my blog says "Someday, Somewhere, Somehow...to write a book and have it published--hopefully in this lifetime". Perhaps that will happen and perhaps it will not. But this I know. This is what is important...that I listen to my calling, that I show up everyday and that I write. I am a writer. I always have been.

Writing in La La Land

One of the things writing teachers tell you is to take notes, be observant, jot down ideas, record things you see, however insignificant, write out dreams you can remember--you just never know when those thoughts, ideas, observances or dreams might be just what you are looking for when you are writing.

OK. So get this. I'm standing in a lobby of a very tall building. I'm very sleepy, groggy, fighting desperately to open my eyes. I'm standing in front of a window that is a credit union in the lobby of this building (like an order window)...you don't go in and talk to the loan officer, you just order it at the order window. But I needed to wake up enough to explain to the loan officer at the window why I needed to borrow the money. I told him I was working for an organization that did compassionate shipping and clothing for morbidly obese people. We made boxes they could be shipped in (OK this part confuses me just as much as it's confusing you) and we make clothes that have to have support around the waist. The only thing we've come up with to use is what I keep calling "cotillion wire". The credit union loan officer does not know what "cotillion wire" is. I keep saying, "You know, like in the movie 'Gone with the Wind', the women wore the big hoop skirts to the Cotillions. The wire hoops held the skirts of their dresses out in a big circle." I kept repeating that, but they never could understand. In the meantime, I am still so sleepy, I can barely keep my eyes opened. I sit down on a chair in the lobby and doze off. Occasionally I wake up long enough to hear a voice on a loud speaker saying "My number is 3378 (or whatever 4-digit number they were) and the reason I want to be heard on the afternoon salute to Joel Ward is (and they'd state their reason) (Joel Ward is a man I used to work with years ago who recently passed away). I could rarely remember what they'd say past their number because I kept dozing off.

I finally woke up enough to realize I was very very late from returning on my lunch break and tried to find my way to the elevator (stopping at another counter to see how to get a number so I too could be on the afternoon salute to Joel Ward). But as you can probably guess by now, I found the elevator, stood in front of it and dozed off. I could barely see the up and down button. I heard a man's voice asking if I was going up or down. "Up", I said. My eyelids were weighed down like tiny bricks on each eyelash. The doors of the elevator opened and I was moving in slow motion like in the movie "10" where Bo Derek runs across the beach, like my feet are stuck in sludge. The doors are closing and I'm trying to get on. I turn sideways and slide in--but the elevator is 2-part, one compartment behind the other and I miss the first compartment and slide into the second. The second compartment is an express elevator that goes directly from the lobby to the 64th floor. There are two men on the elevator with boxes of 'packing popcorn' and bubble wrap. The 'packing popcorn' is all sticky and full of glue and it keeps flying out of the box and sticking to me. The two men act like they don't even see me in the elevator. At one point I am frantically trying to get a piece of this sticky gunk off my finger that has attached itself to me and feels like a leach sucking the blood in a jungle river. They get off on the 64th floor with all their boxes. I, of course, have again gotten very groggy. I can barely see the numbers on the elevator to go back down--on the ride down it appears the elevator stops on all the floors. I hit a button that seems to show floors 10-11-12. The elevator bypasses 12 and 11 and stops on the 10th floor. I get off, look around still in a daze. I am in an office I am familiar with but haven't worked in since 1995. A man whose face is familiar (from that time period), but whose name escapes me completely says "Hey Peg" and seeing how confused I look follows up with "10th floor". I ask him how to get to the 12th floor like it's my first time ever to be in this situation. He giving me a look like he thinks I'm two fries short of a happy meal, points to some stairs and says, "Up two flights, just like everyday". I'm fully awake now and run up the stairs wondering how in the hell I'm going to explain taking so long for lunch. I open the door to the 12th floor, look at the clock over the receptionist's desk and realize I'm only 3 minutes late.


OK. Now I know you're probably either laughing your head off or wondering where I slipped off the deep end of the world into La La Looneyville. But that's how dreams work. I can relate to Joel Ward. I worked with him. He passed away. But where the heck did the 64-story building, the "cotillion wire", the shipping obese people (to who knows where and why), the sticky 'packing popcorn--bloodsucking leach' scenes come from? And for that matter how would I ever fit any of that into a novel. Well I guess stranger things have happened. I've read some pretty imaginative books with some pretty far out scenes. So who knows. I'll stick these notes away and maybe one of these days, when I least expect it, I'll be looking for a character or a building or a box of sticky 'packing popcorn' to put in a chapter and I'll refer back to that wacky dream. That's what make fiction writing so much fun. It doesn't have to be true. It just has to fit into the story that is believable enough for the reader to want to read on.

'til I write again. Take care.

Shut up and write!

I just realized that I have been TALKING way too much about wanting to write and not doing what a writer must do.....WRITE.

On any given day I have a thousand things running around in my brain--kind of like a car that stops at a stop light and everyone in the car jumps out to play "Chinese Fire Drill". When all the characters get back in the car, they have changed--not only places, but appearances and thoughts. They jump out at the next stop light to yet change again. And I think to myself that I should write those thoughts down, write how each character looks each time they change, write down their thoughts, think about what they are doing, may be doing, have done and how it might fit into a not yet formed or written story.

But lately all I seem to do is just think about writing, yearn to write, ache to write, plan to write...a story, an article, a poem, a book. I am (in my writing study) reading a fabulous blog by a young woman named Laraine Herring. She is a teacher, writer, author, counselor, a playwright and an editor. But mostly to me, she is an inspiration, telling me (through her blog)...as they say 'not necessarily what I want to hear, but what I need to hear' (but secretly...it is what I want to hear). I can not begin to tell you the words of wisdom I have gleaned from her writing, her teaching and her thoughts.

I am learning to listen more, observe more, and write notes about things I see, hear and feel. I am learning to not be afraid of my past, my personal thoughts, my concerns of the future, my love and devotion to certain people and places, present and past--the secrets of my heart--how ordinary my life seems. I am learning we all have a story and each one is unique. We all have fantasies, wishes, dreams and ordinary lives that might or might not seem ordinary to a reader. We should write.

I am learning that it's time to lighten my load--that less is more. I am learning that I can "not color" my hair and the world will not stop because all of a sudden I have decided to grow old gracefully, naturally--salt and pepper gray. It is actually very freeing. I can talk myself out of the bed at 4:30 in the morning to get on the treadmill for an hour, so I don't have to do it in the afternoon when I come home so tired. I can get used to taking care of my body so that the approaching 'older' years will not be laden with aches, pains and illness. I'm getting used to the peaceful safe retreat I now call home. It is freeing.

I am putting down on paper things that bother me. By writing my thoughts and anguishes down, I get them off my chest, out of my heart, beyond the "Chinese Fire Drill" chaos of no direction in my head. For right now I will not share all the thoughts because I don't want the whole world to know (am I an optimist or a fool to think the whole world will read my blog?) I guess I will really be free when I feel comfortable enough to share my ghosts--past and present. I am seeing as Laraine Herring wrote in her blog, that writing frees every part of my world. And as a happenstance acquaintance once told me, write it down, hold out my arms (hands in a meditation pose), deep breath in, deep breath out and let it go.

I have said a thousand times (or more) that I never seem to have the time to write. Writers make the time to write. Writers must be disciplined. Every book that I read (about writing) tells me that I must write, write, write and write some more. So this has become my new lunch half hour. I will eat a bite (or not) and write during this short window of time. Hey it's a start. And of course, as quickly as it started, my half hour is done. Times up. (for today anyway)