It has happened – again. Writer’s block. I love the Sundays when I sit down to write and something just rolls out of my brain and onto the screen and a few minutes later – BOOM! The “bits” are written. And then there are the weeks like this one – where I keep procrastinating for another half hour. I watch another TV show, bake another batch of cookies, visit another blog, go for another walk, hoping that something will trigger an idea in my mind.
Today I have nine dozen (wonderful, I might add) cookies on my kitchen counter and no thoughts rolling through my brain. Then it occurred to me that long ago, I purchased a book for just such an occasion. It’s called Room to Write, and it contains page after page of ideas intended to spark writing during the times of blockage. I paid $6.48 for it, according to the price tag – which is still on the book for some very unBekahlike reason – so I might as well actually open the book and use it!
The prompt said, “Most of us write because we love to read. You have to love words and what they do to you to want to spend so much time wrestling them.” The “assignment” at the bottom of the page said, “Today remember a writer who called you to write.”
Well I don’t remember a particular writer who called me to write, though I certainly gobbled up books at an alarming rate when I was growing up. My parents thought they were saving money by not having cable. They probably spent as much in books over the years as they would have spent on that cable bill!
But if someone were to ask me why I started writing…here’s what I would say.
I loved to write before I could put words on paper. When I was a little girl, I loved to tell stories, and I would tell them to anyone who listened. Grandparents, sisters, parents, unsuspecting passers-by, and when all else failed, a line of baby dolls which I may or may not have bothered to dress for the occasion. And my stories could go on for days. (See how not much changes in my life?) Mom said I skipped from the monumental “first word” status to straight paragraph talk. And though I couldn’t spell words or scribble out letters on paper, I had things to say – so I spoke my stories.
Then I discovered the world of writing – probably in upper elementary school. Just little short stories. Little bits of fiction. Attempts at mirroring the Mandie books or Little House on the Prairie books or any number of Janette Oke books that filled my bookshelves in my bedroom. I remember one of my first “big” attempts at writing was a novel that I never finished – and probably never will finish. It was about a girl named Jensine who lived back in the pioneer days. I remember that she was an orphan, and I remember that for my age and training level, the story line was surprisingly put together.
I dabbled in keeping a journal – a diary, back then. I never succeeded very long because the books I bought were actual diary books that had dated pages, and I felt very limited by that page boundary. Some days I couldn’t squeeze everything I had to say onto the tiny page allotted, and other days, if I couldn’t fill up an entire page, I felt like a failure. (To this day, if I am writing in a workbook of some sort, I will write until every line is filled, whether or not I have something meaningful to say on that line. I hate unused lines.) Once I finally learned about generic blank books, I became extremely disciplined in keeping a daily journal entry. I think I’ve been doing that for almost fifteen years now.
I was in high school when I discovered that I could actually major in writing when I went to college. That appealed to me, as my drive to follow my original career paths of secretarial work, teaching school, or nursing had waned severely. So I enrolled in college as a writing major. I gave very little thought to what I would actually do with that once I finished school. I was just happy to have a major.
My school was blessed with great professors who challenged me (sometimes too much, I used to think) and allowed me to grow as the writer I was – even if what I chose to write didn’t appeal to their tastes. I quickly learned that writing fiction, which is what I thought I wanted to do, was not really my passion. Even more quickly, I learned that poetry was out for me. (That was a rough semester of patience from my professor who gently wrote in my final portfolio, “I don’t think you are first a poet-writer, but you do this well too.” What a kind way of saying “DON’T DO THIS EVER AGAIN!”) In one rather torturous class, I learned that technical writing was not even close to being my gift.
But while there, I learned a craft. I learned how to weave humor and seriousness into the same article. I learned the fine line between teaching and preaching. I learned how to take what I know and mold it into something with personality.
One of the greatest gifts I ever received as a writing student, was a note that a professor tucked inside a portfolio I had to submit at the end of the semester. I don’t even remember which writing class I took that year, but we had to submit a journal entry every time we met for class. The entries went in a rotation of three topics – one about something we’d read (because a good writer always reads), one about the world (because a good writer always observes what is happening in the local world and the larger world), and something about life (because a good writer always finds a way to teach from life experience).
In the flap of the portfolio, she wrote a beautiful note that encouraged and affirmed my chosen path. She told me that I was diligent and gifted and that I was the real deal in a crowd that perhaps held some who were not the real deal. She ended the note by saying, “You know how to persevere. I’m very proud of you.”
I’m pretty sure I cried when I read it. Gaining her approval was one of my highest goals as her student. I don’t share that with you to boast in any way, but to say that this is the note that keeps me writing when I want to quit. Writing is a lot of work. It’s a commitment that I keep every day of my life – either in journaling or blogging or working on things for publication. It takes a lot of time, it’s vulnerable, and sometimes it exposes way too much of my heart. I’ve read back through that college assignment enough to know it really wasn’t my best work ever. But she saw potential in me – and I am determined to make the best use of that potential, even if right now, it’s not my bread-winning job.
So why do I write? I write because block or no block, I can’t breathe if I don’t write. If I try to skip it, I’m miserable. I write because before I could write, I spoke the stories. I write because I have to put onto paper (or screen) the things in my heart. Maybe only 1/8th of it is worth keeping. But I never know when something worth keeping will spill out – so I have to write until my hand hurts – and then later go back and look for the treasures.
15 minutes ago