Tomorrow?

Tomorrow never comes. Well, that saying surely seems true as I sit here and read my last offering of my musings. It seems that life has grabbed me up and I've never quite got around to writing that review about Lena Roy's workshop and the humorous incident that happened that day. And now the problem is that I don't quite remember what it is that I wanted to share with you all. In the words of A.A. Milne's Winnie the Pooh, oh bother!

And that brings to mind, what IS a Pooh anyway? Why is he Winnie THE Pooh? Is he, like Tigger, the only one? Hmm... Well, I'll contemplate that another time too. Perhaps tomorrow! I am choosing to believe that it does come. It just changes its name to Today. 

And today I look back at yesterday, which once was a today and even a tomorrow, and I see that quite a lot has happened in my life since I wrote that blog after attending Lena's workshop. Yes, quite a lot, like I worked my fingers off for quite a while actually getting paid to write. Imagine that! I guess I -am- a writer if I got paid to do it! (That makes me laugh a little.) But there is still so much inside me that I hope to one day put into words that can be shared with others. Maybe this blog will be the catalyst to put me back on that particular path of writing. I think I'll start... tomorrow.

“Rivers know this: there is no hurry. We shall get there some day.” 

― A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh

I Am a Writer, I Think...

Since deciding that I am a writer underneath this exterior that appears to be an ordinary wife and mother, I have attended a few workshops in an attempt to further my skill.  Today was one of those opportunities and I was able to attend a workshop called "Mining Your Life for Fiction", led by Lena Roy, author of Edges and granddaughter of Madeleine L'Engle.  In case you don't recognize grandma's name, she is probably best known for writing A Wrinkle in Time.  Lena was encouraging and inspiring and I came away believing in myself a little bit more! Well worth my twenty dollar investment in the three-hour afternoon workshop I'd say!

Let me tell you about the workshop, but first let me back up and tell you about my initial encounter with Lena.  Thursday night she was our speaker at the Mobile Writer's Guild meeting and she spoke about a number of things, but one message stuck out for me.  To paraphrase that message, no writer is really any better than another.  Now some may have more technical skill, or write more eloquent prose than another, but we all have a story to tell. And if in your heart you feel you are a writer, then who is to tell you that you aren't? That may not be exactly what Lena said, but it is the essence of her message that I took home with me on Thursday night.

I guess her message resonated with me because I can remember wanting to be a writer since I was a teen, but never quite feeling I deserved to think of myself in those terms.  After all, I have no college degree declaring me to be an English scholar, or anything that sounds like I am entitled to be a writer.  In fact, I have no degree at all.  But I do remember my English 101 teacher in my year or so of college, keeping me late one day to tell me I had no business in her class and that she was moving me to another more "advanced" and creative class.  I also remember in my senior year of high school, my English teacher encouraged me to enter one of my pieces in a contest because she felt I had real potential to win.  I didn't follow through on that and I have no idea why... probably I felt too exposed to share my writing with others at that point in time.  It still feels like standing on a stage naked even to write something as simple as this blog post.  But here I am these days, standing naked before you, my dear reader, declaring myself to be a "writer".  After all, if Lena Roy can stand before me and say "I am a writer" when she grew up in the shadow of her prize-winning writer grandmother (although Lena never indicated she felt she was in her grandmother's shadow, I just think I would have felt that way), then surely I too can say, "I am a writer".

OK, so I haven't told you about the workshop, but you know what? I've decided not to tonight.  Sorry, perhaps tomorrow I'll share with you my thoughts about the workshop, especially the librarian I met and what made me chuckle about her.  I think it will make you chuckle too!

A "Peace" of Writing

Life seems like it takes you by the coat tails sometimes and just spins you around, keeping you from doing the things that bring you the most pleasure and contentment in life. That's how it's been with my writing lately. So many things have crossed my mind that I've wanted to sit down and write about, but somehow, there just hasn't been time to do so or when there was time, the other pieces of the puzzle eluded me. So today, I have a few minutes and what am I doing? I'm writing about absolutely nothing except the fact that I wish that I'd had more time and opportunity to write in the past few months.

It's amazing to me how the simple act of putting my thoughts into words and down on “paper” can clear my own mind and give me a sense of peace. The world we live in is so “noisy”. Televisions, radios, billboards, traffic, children, pets, jobs, bills – all of these things screaming for our attention. Sometimes it's necessary for my sanity to step away from all that and pick up the “pen” and just write. Anything, it doesn't matter what, just anything that unites me with my thoughts alone is a suitable subject to help me feel at peace with myself again.

It's nice if what I write brings a smile to someone else or perhaps provokes them to deeper thought about some subject. But if the only thing I accomplish is to bring a bit of peace to my own tired and weary soul, then that is accomplishment enough. I don't know if that's how other writers feel, but it is how I feel and perhaps the foremost reason I write – to give a moment of peace to myself in this noisy, busy world that I live in. Maybe you might want to try it too the next time you're feeling the need to “get away from it all”.

Peace to you all!