Writing About Writing

I am writing about writing when I should be writing about farming or food or science fiction tropes. Still, this is important.

Why?

I am not alone in my struggles as a writer. It has taken me a decade and then some to even call myself a writer, though as a child it was easy. I still get surprised when I find out that people read what I am writing and it matters to them, that my stories are inspiring or encouraging, or just interesting and entertaining. I shrink back and think they must have mistaken me for someone else.

I write to entertain myself mostly. I learn about things for the same reason. The world around me is fascinating and complex and interesting. I write to process that. I write love letters to my children so they know how much they are adored and valued, if ever they forget or I am not there to remind them.

When I spend time around other writers I get paralysed and act all fan girl and breathless and squee a lot. Especially food writers. I get panicked that I managed to get myself in a place where I am in face to face conversation and there I am making an ass of myself. I am really trying so hard to not do that, practising composure, but it really is a mindset of unworthiness. Do I not value what I have to say? Do I not value the time and effort and skill I am working on to be a writer? Why the anxiety?

I have been setting aside 30 minutes a day and a 4 hour chunk every week just to write and blog. Sometimes the stress of work creeps in and menaces me while I write, but that time is MINE. This has often meant late nights typing in the dark with an almost three year old sleep thrashing across my lap while I use a back lit keyboard to find my words. It often means I hit draft instead of publish because it is so late I doubt my grammar skills or cannot find just the right photograph. I still do it though, I still write.

When the question is posed- write or nap, I chose write. When the choice is between laundry, dishes, or write.....I choose write. I only don't chose write when my kids need to be fed or need a dance partner or someone to mix paints and recite poetry in a silly voice. It is a tricky balance to write and to also live a life worth writing about.

That is old advice from my Professor at Drake Carol Spaulding; she said, "Don't do into a career that you spend your days writing for other people. Be a bricklayer by day and use the time to live a life worth writing about."

I get that.

I actually studied bricklaying and historic preservation once I graduated and thought about her wisdom as I battled squirrels in the kitchen while restoring our 1887 Victorian. I think about those words as I walk in our pastures and check on the sheep, as I catch fireflies on a summer day with my children, as I navigate the narrow and sterile and freaking terrifying world of being a parent to a special needs baby and now toddler. Am I living a life worth writing about? Am I living a life that feeds me as a writing, nourishing my mind and my words?

Honestly I am out of practise and daily writing is helping sharpen my pen work, get the ink flowing, and bring back my writer's wild mind. The balance of life and writing is not easy, but so so worth it.

I recently read this comic panel: Zen Pencils

Yes. Exactly.

So fellow writers- go write. When the choice is there between watching a marathon of Orange is the New Black and writing- choose wisely. When the choice is between making your bed or crawling back in with your laptop and pounding out another recipe post or short story involving an antagonist who is actually infected with a tongue eating mouth parasite, write that and maybe illustrate that too.