I Have the Write

I’ve wanted to blog for awhile now, primarily as practice for a free-lance second career.  Ultimately, I’d like to be able to do the thing I love more often and with a potentially fruitful result.  I’ve known from the time I could scrawl my name that I was meant to be a writer.  In the beginning, I wanted to be a journalist.  More practically, as the years went on, I wanted to be an English teacher.  Years happened, so now I am faced with mortality and the thought of never having used the gift I was given... that and the fear that under “Occupation” on my death certificate, it will read, “Secretary.”

I’ve kept journals off and on over the years, sometimes many years’ worth at a stretch.  I demand very little in this life, but I do demand privacy about my journals, and invariably, people are fascinated with them.  At least four times I can think of offhand, my journals have been raided.  The last time, I chucked them angrily in a plastic grocery bag, knotted it tightly and gave it to the only person I could trust to do what I wanted.  I gave them to my brother and said, “Get rid of these.”  I know he didn’t want to, but he did.  So, a few years have passed now, and I realized I’d been thinking about this all wrong.  If people are so immensely interested in what I think and feel, I should capitaIize on it. 

I want to tell stories, some true, some not.  I want to illuminate what it’s like to be a human being in this time and in this place.  I want to launch scathing attacks on almost everything, because, at some point, people stopped seeing what is, to me, the obvious.  I want most of what I write to be for everyone, so most explicit tales will appear in another forum.  I cannot, however, guarantee the absence of foul or colorful language.  At some point, I have no doubt everyone will be offended, shocked, surprised and held in disbelief by some of what I say. 

Again, this blog is my arena for practice.  Ultimately, I want to write a book, a good book.  At 17, I could have done it.  At 47, I am rusty from years of burying the thing I would do for free if I were able.  Call it middle age or arrogance or insanity; call it what you want.  The  inherent wisdom of age kicked in somewhere along the way and whispered in my ear, “The love you have for writing remains regardless of whether or not you are paid to do it .”  I think back on the diaries and realize I wrote not because I chose to but because I was unable to choose otherwise.

I hope what I write interests you enough that you’ll visit frequently and possibly encourage your friends to do the same.  I plan to post new entries at least once a week. Click on the "Contact Us" link to provide comments, which are welcomed.

 If you’ll allow me, I’d like to show you a few things.  Some you might like; others you might not.  Either way, I’ll still be writing.