Is it egotistical to think, while reading, that most of the things I’ve written are very good?  I know confidence in one’s abilities is a positive trait, but I’m not certain my feelings about my writing don’t sometimes—okay, maybe MORE than sometimes—border on, or cross the border on, conceit.  Hmmm…  I guess my feelings for/pride in my writing are much those for my children, so maybe it’s NOT so arrogant, because they are their own entities, not simply my creations…  Does that make it all right?

So, I’m “spring cleaning” my life and my writing files, and in the process I’ll be posting more in my “What I Did For Words” and “The Words” categories here, sharing some of WHY I’ve written and also WHAT I’ve written over the past eight or so years.  Perhaps some of you will comment and help light a fire under me to get some of my long-neglected projects FINISHED.

Yesterday I posted the Prologue of “One Last Dime,” the first novel I began seriously writing, in late March of 2004.  It is a story VERY personal to me—yeah, as most of what I write is—and I have been doing the same thing with it that I have done with so much of what I’ve written.  I’ve held it close to me, loving and nurturing it, keeping it “safe.”  Safe from WHAT?  Safe from WHO?  I don’t really know.  It’s not like someone’s going to hurt its feelings or beat it up!  This is something I need to work on.  I did it pretty well with my girls—letting go—so WHY is it SO hard for me to do it with my writing?

Yes, THAT is the BIG question, I think!

The things I have to say through my writing won’t really mean much if I don’t SHARE the writing!  So, be warned, dear blog readers—there ARE some of you OUT THERE, aren’t there?—I’m going to start sharing!

REALLY this time!

I have been married for two years now, to my “high school sweetheart,” or at least that is how it looks to everyone.  The reality of the marriage is not quite so sweet.

Yes, Stephen and I had met through a blind date our senior year of high school.  Yes, I lost, (or got rid of), my virginity with him a couple weeks later.  But he was not the only one I dated, or slept with, and he was not the one I really wanted.  He was just in the right place at the right time.

You couldn’t really call the marriage happy, but it wasn’t miserable either.  It got me away from home, gave me something to do, and a certain amount of freedom.  I had always wanted to “escape” from my hometown, and since Stephen was in the Navy, I got that chance.  The locale wasn’t exactly exotic, but it was out of the boring Midwest and there was a beach to go to on hot summer days.  Within a month of our wedding day, Stephen had his first girlfriend, but it didn’t bother me all that much.  He went off to do his own thing, and I was left to mine.  I had my reading, music, and television.  I had my time to myself.  I had my fantasy life, and my fantasy love.  That was all I really needed.

That hot summer of 1981 Stephen was far away, and just as far out of my thoughts.  He had been sent out on a ship for nine months.  This was the way with the military, of course, I’d expected it, I’d WANTED it.  I thought it was a pretty good deal to have a husband who really wasn’t around all that much.  Since Stephen was going to be gone so long, and because my mother had recently had cancer surgery, I quit my dead-end fast-food job, put our belongings in storage, gave up our small apartment in Norfolk, Virginia, and moved back home to Kansas City, Missouri.  I’d planned to help my mother, and since I had dropped out of college two years before to marry Stephen, I’d also take some classes.

My two summer classes, Algebra and British Literature, met on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but this was Friday, and I wouldn’t have to be back to the university for four days.  I had told my mother that I was spending the weekend with my best high school girlfriend, Jeane, so no one was expecting me.  I had my bag packed, and enough cash to cover whatever might happen over the next three days.

I had never done anything like this in my whole life, but I needed a vacation from being me.  I was off on an adventure, but I had no idea what a big adventure it would turn out to be, or that my greatest fantasy was about to become reality, and change my life forever…

This is part of the novel I began in spring 2004; the one I talk about beginning with remembered snatches of a dream.  It remains unfinished, and I haven’t even looked at it in a LONG time, but it just had a “birthday,” so I think it needs and deserves renewed attention.

In the summer of 2004, I was privileged to attend a class/writers’ workshop through The Writers Place and the University of Missouri-Kansas City in Kansas City, MO, (some poems written during that experience will be posted soon).  The facilator, Maureen, said something that strongly resonated with me, and it is something I have tried to incorporate into my writing AND life.  She said that a writer is someone brave enough to show his or her soft underbelly to the world.

This is SO true!  How can one write–and expect anyone to READ or CARE ABOUT it–if one is not honest enough to show the deepest, darkest, craziest, most sensitive parts of him/herself?  Readers deserve honesty, and to me, that means being COMPLETELY honest and candid, especially with myself.  It means being true to myself and to who and what I am.

I’ll admit that it is uncomfortable sometimes, like when I was posting the October 1998 poem, but that piece speaks the truth of what I was feeling, so if I am going to share my writing at all, I must be willing, EAGER even, to share it.

So, hang on, dear blog readers, A LOT of soft underbelly is going to be displayed here!  Hopefully, you will enjoy this journey with me.

And PLEASE, let me know you’re visiting from out there in Cyber-land!  LEAVE COMMENTS!

I miss you

I’ll never get the chance

to know you

Please come to me now,

if there is a way

I wish I had known

I would have helped you

I would have cared for you

(I do care for you)

I would have left my family,

my life

(it is no life without you)

I love you so much

I don’t care if you’re straight,

gay, neither (both?)

It didn’t have to be physical

(I just wanted you)

It’s been 25 years

The longest romantic relationship

of my life

No one can tell me

It never was

As promised, THE WORDS!!!  So far, I’ve only gone through my poetry files, and this is the oldest poem I’ve found.  It’s no surprise this one is about Roddy, (I wasn’t kidding about that Muse stuff!), written the month he died in October, 1998.  I had a VERY difficult and lonely time dealing with his death, so writing, as usual, was my best therapy.  Some have called me “maladjusted,” but if it IS maladjustment, it is MY maladjustment.

Here I’ll share pieces, or parts of pieces, I’ve written.  Many will no doubt be poetry, since that plays a huge part in my life, and also lends itself well to short format, (something I’m generally VERY BAD at!), but I’ll also include exerpts of longer pieces, including the novels I’ve been working on with Lee, and even other novels that haven’t really gone anywhere, (yet).  I may even find some OLD things I wrote when I was in college, (and I may rewrite some of them).  And, as always, I am EAGER for your comments.

I’m currently taking some time from shining and polishing “The Door into the Rose Garden,” Lee’s and my first novel, (yes, AGAIN! another “definitive” edit), to dig through my files for things to share, and I expect I’ll write some pieces especially to post here.  As I said when I relaunched this blog, I’m trying to “get myself out there.”

So stay tuned!

Those were the words that unlocked a part of me I hadn’t consciously known, that had been lying dormant within me for a very long time.

At seventeen I put away, (mostly), my most precious schoolgirl longings and faced “reality.”  I began interacting more with my peers: dated, married, had children…  I put myself on the path that led me away from that teenage girl and to my forty-fourth year.  To the casual observer my life seemed “normal.”  I was a wife, a mother, a teacher, a college student, a Girl Scout leader.  I was the one everyone could depend on.  I saw to everyone else’s needs and wants before my own.

But I didn’t know who “me” was anymore.  I didn’t know what whoever-that-was needed or wanted.

I hadn’t in I don’t know how long.

But those words, whispered into my mind, began to bring it all back.  I was so enamored with it all that I was heedless of any consequences.  I was more self-focused than I had been in a long time, maybe ever, so I didn’t notice the effect my metamorphosis was having on those around me.

And the words!  The words continued to flow through my fingers, scenes unfolding one after another.  I was captivated!

My husband had been emotionally distant for a long time, but I had remained steadfast.  This all changed when I found something that was MINE!  Honestly, I didn’t think he would notice, but he did, and the jealousies began.  I had supported him through everything he did, yet he was threatened by my awakening.  It drove an additional wedge between us, and was ultimately the thing that tore us apart.

In the seven and a half years since I first heard those words whispered into my ear my life has turned 180 degrees.  Ten years ago I would NEVER have imagined I would be living the life I am now, that I would have made so many drastic changes.  I do have regrets; I regret that I have hurt people I love, especially my daughters, and I regret that a thousand miles separate us.  I did what I felt I had to do though, for my self and for my sanity, (although I doubt many people would classify my choices as “sane”).  I hope that one day my girls will understand, and that they are never faced with some of the decisions I have been.

The words are still here, and although they do sometimes elude me, I have faith that they WILL remain with me always.  I also have faith that SOMEHOW I will negotiate the complexities of the publishing business and find a way to share the stories that burn in me with the reading public.

Any ideas on HOW to accomplis THIS would be greatly appreciated, of course.

We all have such moments, of course.  We have them all the time, but usually we are unaware that they are occurring, that they are pivotal, until they are long gone.  This time though, I knew as it was happening that my world would forever be changed.

But even I could never have imagined how great the changes would be.  I knew that giving myself over to the stories burning within me would disrupt the even flow of my life, but not that it would lead to events that would shift its entire course.

I was settling down, trying to fall asleep, when I began to remember scraps of a recent, recurring dream.  I saw fluttering images and heard a whisper in my ear.

“That was you…?  We could have had years already…” his familiar voice said.

My eyes flew open!

I crept out of bed, leaving my sleeping husband.  I HAD to write!

I wrote all through that night and most of the next day; most of the next several days and nights, actually.  Three days later, after only about seven hours of sleep, I was swimming in the euphoria of putting words to paper.  I had never felt so ALIVE!  I had never really taken drugs, but couldn’t imagine any kind of high more intense than this one!  Several times I literally found myself dancing along corridors and sidewalks!  I rushed through everything else–cooking, schoolwork, caring for my family’s and my own needs–so I could get back to my notebook or computer, so I could live in THAT world.

The rest of my life seemed like a movie I was watching, while the story revealing itself to me word by word was my reality.  I could hear the water rippling in the fountain and see how it caught the sunlight.  I could feel the sunshine on my shoulders and the touch of his hand on my arm.  I could look into his brown eyes and hear his voice.  This was a path my life had not taken.  Although I knew that road had disappeared forever, I hoped I could recapture some of the girl I had once been, the woman I might have become, if I had followed him into the story we never had.

I followed where he led this time, and it took me to places beyond my wildest expectations.  It also took me to a whole new life.  I look back on that time, over seven years ago now, and think of how I have changed since then.  I’ve changed as a woman and as a writer.  I am closer to being my whole, true, authentic self than I have ever been.

But, as with everything we do, there have been costs…

And success.

Actually, perhaps I ONLY have a problem with success, which manifests itself in the form of procrastination… or maybe I’m just lazy…?  And wishy-washy.

Case in point–THIS BLOG!  I started it about a year or so ago, and have done virtually nothing with it.  True, I wasn’t quite ready to do a blog, but seeing Deneen and Mike launch their blogs spurred me into action.  I have this problem with competition/proving myself, etc.

My list of “problems” keeps growing; procrastination, success, wishy-washiness, competition/proving myself, (is that one or two problems? yeah probably two).  Oh, and I tend to get off-track writing parenthetically.

So, where was I?  Oh yes, this blog.  I started it, then didn’t know what I wanted to do with it.  I came up with what I thought was a clever title, wrote my bio, etc., spiffed the whole thing up a bit, then abandoned it after only a couple postings.  I even wrote a few other entries, but didn’t ever post them!  What’s up with that?  Did NaNoWriMo last year derail me?  Honestly, I don’t even know all the reasons I let this blog fall by the wayside, I just know that I did.

I need to “build my platform,” as the writing books say, and do other SERIOUS things to get myself established as a “real writer,” so I can get an AGENT and a PUBLISHER!  I’m ready to FINALLY move myself forward in this process… whatever that may entail.  This revived blog is one of my first steps into that great beyond.

Wish me luck!

 
And other times that Muse won’t even let me turn the music on. I sit alone in the silence, remembering what the dance felt like the last time, yearning to feel that communion once again.

This seems to have been my problem the past week and a half or so, pretty much since I began this blog. Before launching it, I’d felt the Muse’s kiss on my cheek and was FULL of ideas. I’m still full of ideas, actually, as the sensation of that gentle kiss lingers, yet there appears to be some sort of disconnect between my thoughts and the process of getting them down on paper. I wonder if the music is actually playing, but I simply cannot hear it.

Some might think this is nothing more than a bad case of ‘Spring Fever,’ but this is often a very creative time of year for me. The reawakening of the Earth usually gets my own creative juices flowing so freely that my fingers have trouble keeping up with the images exploding from my mind.

Not so this year.

I’m not certain I can blame this on a reluctant Muse though, since I too am playing a part in the obstruction. Perhaps, it is only I who hesitates. I’ve noticed that in recent days I have immersed myself in many unnecessary housekeeping tasks, such as organizing the photo and music files on my computer, and even my CD collection. At least I haven’t started on my books or rearranging my office! I’d KNOW I was in trouble in either of those cases.

Is it something deeper, my timidity in blog writing, or am I simply not in my writing mind just now? I’ve been on a bit of a hiatus from writing recently, and know that when I do get back into it I will admonish myself for neglecting such an essential part of who I am.

I WANT to write. I FEEL better, more alive, more ME when I’m actively writing, when my Muse and I are moving together in a whirl or words.

So, let’s crank up the tunes and get on with it, eh?

May I have this dance?

That all changed in late March of 2004, when the images just beneath my consciousness demanded to be given voice, and I began to ‘seriously’ write–although I’ve certainly had a lot of FUN doing it. Those first few days I got hardly any sleep, I was so excited to meet the characters forming beneath my fingertips. It was a high like none I’d ever felt, before or since.

I’ve learned in these six years that the actual work of writing isn’t a constant high–sometimes it is agony–but I cannot imagine a life without it now. Writing, even when I am chipping away at some difficult buried emotion, or embedded in research about and obscure event that happened before I was even born, has become as essential to me as breathing. And although I have had to make sacrifices, sometimes causing suffering and disappointment to others, as well as myself, these are offerings I’ve felt I HAD to make. For my art, or for my sanity, I’m not sure which.

It is what I do. It is who I am.

I am a writer.