"I can't believe you have not heard the dog barking for the last twenty minutes!" Ann yells outside my bedroom door.
(I barely can hear HER--it is going on ninety-five outside and the air conditioner in this room is two feet from my head.)
She opens the door.
"I've been up since four a.m.! I've taken Maeve out, twice, cooked bacon for breakfast, made a huge macaroni salad for supper, read the Sunday paper and been online already--you're still in bed!" Ann glares at me, hair dripping on the carpet, smelling of shampoo.
"Well, that's your lifestyle--" I turn over, not adding that I didn't close my eyes until five a.m.
"Yeah, well, you don't HAVE a lifestyle!" Ann closes the door and goes back to the dog.
(Hmmm...any thoughts of resuming my dreams are over now.
My worst fear has been activated: I don't have a lifestyle...
Is this true?)
How do my days go, now that school is over?
Get up in the late morning: because then I am out of Dad's way as he makes breakfast for himself and the dog; get out of Mom's way as she meanders in and out of the bathroom, then downstairs to drink juice and read the morning paper and watch the morning news with Dad and then makes her own breakfast and then comes back upstairs to finish her morning toilet...
(I sneak into the shower somewhere while they are engaged downstairs.)
When the kitchen is clear, I snag the morning paper and finish what is left of the coffee. Depending on the hour and my stomach, sometimes a bowl of Cheerios and a piece of fruit, sometimes a bagel and blueberries, sometimes a hot Mexican scramble, with avocado on the side. I finish up and wash the coffee pot and put dishes in the dishwasher.
If Mom isn't doing laundry, I do laundry. If she is, I go back upstairs and begin my day of writing.
(Summer should mean kayaking, but since baby possums inhabit my kayak right now, that isn't an option...)
Check e-mail. Check Facebook. Check L.A. Times. Check NY Times. Answer e-mail.
Twice a week (sometimes three times) I write a new blog entry. Check stats to see if anyone is reading them. Post them.
If it is not a blogger day, I go immediately to the manuscript I am working on. Try to knock out at least what amounts to "a chapter". I don't re-write. Just get the story down. (Rewrites are for when the first version is finished...that's when the writing is "fun"...otherwise, it is like sweating blood...seriously.)
I am usually interrupted several times--for parental postings: we are going to the store now we are taking the dog we are going to the post office now we are not taking the dog we are going to the restaurant now we are not taking the dog if you hear the phone please pick it up if you hear the doorbell please answer it if you hear someone downstairs it may be Ann or Bren or Kev or Emily or Mer if you hear someone downstairs check it might be Uncle Bob or the cleaner or the garage door fixer or the refrigerator repair guy if you hear someone downstairs it may be someone trying to break in...check it!
The phone may ring several times. Sometimes I hear it and answer. It is rarely for moi...Sometimes I honestly do NOT hear it--the air conditioner is even closer when I am typing (perched on top of my Mom's old sewing machine which is the only "desk" I have in this room...my laptop is one foot from the window...)--in which case, if Ann is home, she will pick up the phone, upset and yelling at me that I did not--she is trying to sleep--she has the nightshift--I should be on top of this! (I know I know but if one is trapped in a five foot long by three feet wide "corridor" between the window and the bed, seated on a straight back Early American chair that one's feet do not touch the floor from--with the air conditioner screaming a high pitched whine in one's good ear, and one is trying to write a new novel, well, one isn't simply waiting for the phone to ring so one can lean over and answer it!)
My friends know enough to text or leave a message on my cell--which I will eventually get to. But I never just pick up a phone call--usually I am far from the phone. Seriously--and metaphorically.
Around noon, anyone in the house who eats lunch is congregated in the kitchen doing various "lunch things"--if Ann is home, Maeve usually gets a cooked lunch, too. I come in for something to drink or to clean up breakfast remains, but I don't usually eat lunch at noon. My brain is keyed up and percolating with whatever I've been working on...My uptake is slow in conversations and my patience is thin about the neighbors and the Church and the African scammers on the phone. This elicits sharp remarks and the usual "you are such a Toon"! It's okay. My mind is focused on conversations in the paragraphs upstairs--or dream images that may hold a plot key.
Around two p.m., Dad comes in from the yard and the garden and the work space in the garage. He settles in for an Ensure, some peanut butter and crackers, and the Red Sox game on cable. I come down for a gnosh; to stretch; to give Maeve a treat and pick up piddle papers or let her out if she asks. My brain is still spinning between plot lines and characters. I am moving outside my body...Spaced out and spaced "in". I react in a way that gets chalked up to "California weird"...Doesn't matter because I'm not there...I'm in "the book".
Unlike many writers, I don't drink or eat where I type. The sewing machine surface doesn't accomodate anything but my laptop and glasses--sometimes a small pad of paper. Drinking is out of the question.(In fact, once I switched to computer use, I stopped drinking at my desk--too many coffee-stained manuscripts when I typed.) Now, it is work first.
I go back and check e-mails. I also check various writers' sites for news, calls for manuscripts, contacts, etc. I might work on some poetry or on another manuscript I'm currently involved with...I might compose a letter or two and answer any queries that have come in.(My brain is in "writing mode" and time slips by very quickly.) My aching back and butt and legs tell me I should get up and move...ridiculous...I need a desk. I need a desk chair. I need to get outside and run...I continue typing.
I take a break around four p.m.
Maeve wants her "doggie soup"--my particular recipe for her supper. If I'm late, she'll remind me, politely outside my bedroom. At the top of the stairs--waiting. Or, if Mom is making spaghetti for supper, Maeve will meander downstairs and stare. (But I usually am down there by four.) I make the "soup"--no matter who is home--I wait for Maeve to eat it. (She demands an audience--or at least "company".) Then I must give her "dessert"--a doggie biscuit or a bone to "brush her teeth". This she takes into the parlor and joins Dad and the early newscast.
I take this time to exit, back up to my room.
Now is the time to read: I am getting books to review for a small agency in L.A. (I also make heavy use of the local library.) I am omnivorous when it comes to reading, though I prefer texts that are metaphysical and mysterious.(Curiouser and curiouser...as someone once wrote...)
At five p.m., Mom calls us all to dinner. (I told her when I arrived back home, not to worry about me for dinner.) She worries. I come down at five. I eat a truncated meal with her and Dad. She insists on cooking--though I have offered. It is laughed at and shot down--I can't even peel a parsnip and they all know it--a family lamentation. (I can. I have. I would. It just isn't happening.)She is the Queen of her kitchen domain--I am the family Jester. On a "Seinfeld" episode, it would be funny. At 88 Maple, it is less so...
After dinner--Dad and Mom clear the table in two seconds--Dad rinsing stuff for the dishwasher and allowing no help. Mom is off to get her meds for the night. The dog scrounging for "leftovers"--which both Mom and Dad slip her-- yelling at me if I suggest this same action.I shrug and apologize to Maeve.
I put away the condiments.
I slip back upstairs to write.
Sometimes, Helayne will call or bike or drive by.
We hang out for a while.She wants me to visit this guy she met via E-bay, who clears people's estates and gets bikes for re-sale. (No questions asked.) She wants me to "come up with like twenty bucks--maybe forty, tops.." and promises a functional bike. She wants me to go with her into the wooded areas on the trails that scare her--but also call her. I tell her, sadly, "I don't have forty bucks to drop on a bike..." She assures me that "sometime this summer" we will work this out.(I keep thinking of the possum babies...)
Sometimes Judy will call. Sometimes older friends from older times phone.
Occasionally, now that school is out and there are no subbing jobs, I'll go with someone for a cup of coffee. These connections are dear to me. I don't want to go anyplace that is loud--I want to hear them and see them and enjoy their company. Far cry from the old days in CA, when we had to have an activity in order to hang out...a destination to frolic...trouble to get in and out of, with abandon!
Now, if I have company, I want it to be companionable and connected. Otherwise, my mind wanders back to the manuscripts...the blogs...the words boiling inside...and I can't spare the time...don't want to just amble around causing commotion. It isn't about aging--it's about time--and writing.
If no one drops by my essential/extensive social network on-line beckons. But I watch the clock and don't get lost ...there's more to accomplish on-line:
I check out recent job posting sites. I am registered from Worcester to the Western part of Central MA...licensed HS English teacher with thirty years experience...etc. I do the required site shifting and apps and keep up hope and keep networking...so many resumes...so many cover letters...so far: nada. (Except for the bogus Catholic School situation--which I hope and pray will never be repeated in my lifetime...sigh...)It is so hard to take myself seriously as a teacher, as I confront these mountains.
I know I've been successful, before. I know I can handle most kids--including the lost ones, the confused ones, the cocky ones, the feisty ones; the gifted ones; the challenging ones. I've proven it over and again. But nobody is watching. Nobody is listening.
Forget the commercials you see or the adds you read: America isn't really looking for committed teachers...not really. If she were really looking, I'd be found. I'd be utilized. I'd be made to prove my stuff and there would be a committee to see if I was the real deal.
I am. (I keep reminding myself of this fact...)
After my heart and ego get pummeled for a couple hours, I get a break. Mind-numbing-pop- culture: reality t.v. Seinfeld. Fearnet.channel. Animal Planet. Junk food for my entertainment genes.
At eight p.m., Maeve gets her shot (for diabetes). She takes the whole family's coaxing to get her downstairs to get the injection. She's good for the needle, but it is getting her downstairs to face the needle that is the challenge. Mostly, if I turn on the stairwell lights and promise treats and joyful abandon, she comes. (Mostly.) Otherwise it takes Ann's yelling at her to go down--always on her own time, while Mom and Dad and I wait at the bottom of the stairs.
After her shot I can re-enter the room, to write.
Late night: time to edit. Mostly poetry; or editing the day's work on the manuscripts. Perhaps a late blog. Even when I am not typing, I am "writing".
This is a reality that any honest wordsmith will tell you if you ask: we are ALWAYS writing. Our minds don't stop. Our brains don't rest. If a situation in the world touches us, we don't simply react. We don't simply verbalize the angst. Our imaginations kick in and we analyze; we replay; we examine; we research and add to the facts; we formulate an argument; we support our beliefs and insights; we write it out.We write it down. We shift and sift and share what we've written.
Night, for me, when the rest of the household is snoring--or gone to another city-- is the time when my brain aligns itself with the sensations of the day. This is the time when I sort and shake it into a pattern. If the t.v. offers "whitenoise", well, all the better. It screens out the sleeping sounds that rain-down around me. It doesn't stop the thoughts from organizing themselves into the verbiage that will eventually flow out on to some kind of platform or page.
Around four or five a.m. is when sleep shuts me down. Before real light filters into the Eastern windows. Before traffic and people gear up for their day. If I am lucky, I will settle in. I might even dream--sometimes I dream a book. Or a poem. (If I'm really lucky.)
The parents let me sleep in. They understand I am better upstairs as they crank their morning routines. Maeve is attended to. There is no awkward scramble for the coffee or the paper.
If someone else is home, I will probably be nudged awake.Or shaken awake. Or badgered awake...
(If I have an interview or sub job, I am already up and running, even before the parental units.) But now it is summer. I am "just a writer"...again. (Not really something of value, here. Not really a contributor nor a meaningful member of society. Not in a mean way: just in a practical "we told you so if you pursued this life" kind of way...Now we have to take care of you...)
It begins again: I have no job; no family responsibility; no connections; no romantical interest; no house; no gym membership; no hobbies; no lifestyle.
I am just a writer.
My entire life is experienced through this truth: this filter. I cannot defend it nor can I fully explain it. It simply exists ...Not a choice nor a plan of action nor even a belief system; it IS my life.
I am, therefore I write.
It becomes exhausting justifying this. I can't support myself doing it. (Something like three percent of the writers in America can support themselves through their writing--and that was before the New Depression--when magazines and newspapers were at their height...)I am not famous, doing this. I am not even really respected--at least not where people can easily see. I have not found love doing it. (In fact, it has cost me relationships. Something about constantly being in your head or behind a closed door a good deal of the time...) I have found neither enlightenment nor peace. Yet, I continue on...
It is not an addiction, though it shares some similarities. It is not a vocation, though one must have the same committment and stamina and faith. It is not really celebrated (not in the 2000s...) nor seen as sexy--except if one is a successful screenwriter--even then, how many screenwriters can you name?
(Who WROTE your favorite film? Hmmm....)
To be a writer, one simply writes. (Author Diane Vreuls told me that, three decades ago, surrounded by a hundred pages of my short stories...I took her seriously. I've lived this.)
A writer doesn't stop. No matter what. No matter where. Published or put down. Perishing or pushed to heights of success. Doesn't matter. The "next thing" is always the one one pursues.
I thank God/Great Spirt/Great Mystery for all who have put up with this obsession. For all who have contributed to my physical constancy and made a safe space for me to hole up when things have gotten tough. I know they are part of this dance. There is a reason for all of this --somewhere. (I write to make note of all of them; I write to keep a record of these facts. I write so others who come later will know they are not alone. This is a real Path. All of this.)
I am a writer.
This is not a lifestyle.
THIS is my life.
(I barely can hear HER--it is going on ninety-five outside and the air conditioner in this room is two feet from my head.)
She opens the door.
"I've been up since four a.m.! I've taken Maeve out, twice, cooked bacon for breakfast, made a huge macaroni salad for supper, read the Sunday paper and been online already--you're still in bed!" Ann glares at me, hair dripping on the carpet, smelling of shampoo.
"Well, that's your lifestyle--" I turn over, not adding that I didn't close my eyes until five a.m.
"Yeah, well, you don't HAVE a lifestyle!" Ann closes the door and goes back to the dog.
(Hmmm...any thoughts of resuming my dreams are over now.
My worst fear has been activated: I don't have a lifestyle...
Is this true?)
How do my days go, now that school is over?
Get up in the late morning: because then I am out of Dad's way as he makes breakfast for himself and the dog; get out of Mom's way as she meanders in and out of the bathroom, then downstairs to drink juice and read the morning paper and watch the morning news with Dad and then makes her own breakfast and then comes back upstairs to finish her morning toilet...
(I sneak into the shower somewhere while they are engaged downstairs.)
When the kitchen is clear, I snag the morning paper and finish what is left of the coffee. Depending on the hour and my stomach, sometimes a bowl of Cheerios and a piece of fruit, sometimes a bagel and blueberries, sometimes a hot Mexican scramble, with avocado on the side. I finish up and wash the coffee pot and put dishes in the dishwasher.
If Mom isn't doing laundry, I do laundry. If she is, I go back upstairs and begin my day of writing.
(Summer should mean kayaking, but since baby possums inhabit my kayak right now, that isn't an option...)
Check e-mail. Check Facebook. Check L.A. Times. Check NY Times. Answer e-mail.
Twice a week (sometimes three times) I write a new blog entry. Check stats to see if anyone is reading them. Post them.
If it is not a blogger day, I go immediately to the manuscript I am working on. Try to knock out at least what amounts to "a chapter". I don't re-write. Just get the story down. (Rewrites are for when the first version is finished...that's when the writing is "fun"...otherwise, it is like sweating blood...seriously.)
I am usually interrupted several times--for parental postings: we are going to the store now we are taking the dog we are going to the post office now we are not taking the dog we are going to the restaurant now we are not taking the dog if you hear the phone please pick it up if you hear the doorbell please answer it if you hear someone downstairs it may be Ann or Bren or Kev or Emily or Mer if you hear someone downstairs check it might be Uncle Bob or the cleaner or the garage door fixer or the refrigerator repair guy if you hear someone downstairs it may be someone trying to break in...check it!
The phone may ring several times. Sometimes I hear it and answer. It is rarely for moi...Sometimes I honestly do NOT hear it--the air conditioner is even closer when I am typing (perched on top of my Mom's old sewing machine which is the only "desk" I have in this room...my laptop is one foot from the window...)--in which case, if Ann is home, she will pick up the phone, upset and yelling at me that I did not--she is trying to sleep--she has the nightshift--I should be on top of this! (I know I know but if one is trapped in a five foot long by three feet wide "corridor" between the window and the bed, seated on a straight back Early American chair that one's feet do not touch the floor from--with the air conditioner screaming a high pitched whine in one's good ear, and one is trying to write a new novel, well, one isn't simply waiting for the phone to ring so one can lean over and answer it!)
My friends know enough to text or leave a message on my cell--which I will eventually get to. But I never just pick up a phone call--usually I am far from the phone. Seriously--and metaphorically.
Around noon, anyone in the house who eats lunch is congregated in the kitchen doing various "lunch things"--if Ann is home, Maeve usually gets a cooked lunch, too. I come in for something to drink or to clean up breakfast remains, but I don't usually eat lunch at noon. My brain is keyed up and percolating with whatever I've been working on...My uptake is slow in conversations and my patience is thin about the neighbors and the Church and the African scammers on the phone. This elicits sharp remarks and the usual "you are such a Toon"! It's okay. My mind is focused on conversations in the paragraphs upstairs--or dream images that may hold a plot key.
Around two p.m., Dad comes in from the yard and the garden and the work space in the garage. He settles in for an Ensure, some peanut butter and crackers, and the Red Sox game on cable. I come down for a gnosh; to stretch; to give Maeve a treat and pick up piddle papers or let her out if she asks. My brain is still spinning between plot lines and characters. I am moving outside my body...Spaced out and spaced "in". I react in a way that gets chalked up to "California weird"...Doesn't matter because I'm not there...I'm in "the book".
Unlike many writers, I don't drink or eat where I type. The sewing machine surface doesn't accomodate anything but my laptop and glasses--sometimes a small pad of paper. Drinking is out of the question.(In fact, once I switched to computer use, I stopped drinking at my desk--too many coffee-stained manuscripts when I typed.) Now, it is work first.
I go back and check e-mails. I also check various writers' sites for news, calls for manuscripts, contacts, etc. I might work on some poetry or on another manuscript I'm currently involved with...I might compose a letter or two and answer any queries that have come in.(My brain is in "writing mode" and time slips by very quickly.) My aching back and butt and legs tell me I should get up and move...ridiculous...I need a desk. I need a desk chair. I need to get outside and run...I continue typing.
I take a break around four p.m.
Maeve wants her "doggie soup"--my particular recipe for her supper. If I'm late, she'll remind me, politely outside my bedroom. At the top of the stairs--waiting. Or, if Mom is making spaghetti for supper, Maeve will meander downstairs and stare. (But I usually am down there by four.) I make the "soup"--no matter who is home--I wait for Maeve to eat it. (She demands an audience--or at least "company".) Then I must give her "dessert"--a doggie biscuit or a bone to "brush her teeth". This she takes into the parlor and joins Dad and the early newscast.
I take this time to exit, back up to my room.
Now is the time to read: I am getting books to review for a small agency in L.A. (I also make heavy use of the local library.) I am omnivorous when it comes to reading, though I prefer texts that are metaphysical and mysterious.(Curiouser and curiouser...as someone once wrote...)
At five p.m., Mom calls us all to dinner. (I told her when I arrived back home, not to worry about me for dinner.) She worries. I come down at five. I eat a truncated meal with her and Dad. She insists on cooking--though I have offered. It is laughed at and shot down--I can't even peel a parsnip and they all know it--a family lamentation. (I can. I have. I would. It just isn't happening.)She is the Queen of her kitchen domain--I am the family Jester. On a "Seinfeld" episode, it would be funny. At 88 Maple, it is less so...
After dinner--Dad and Mom clear the table in two seconds--Dad rinsing stuff for the dishwasher and allowing no help. Mom is off to get her meds for the night. The dog scrounging for "leftovers"--which both Mom and Dad slip her-- yelling at me if I suggest this same action.I shrug and apologize to Maeve.
I put away the condiments.
I slip back upstairs to write.
Sometimes, Helayne will call or bike or drive by.
We hang out for a while.She wants me to visit this guy she met via E-bay, who clears people's estates and gets bikes for re-sale. (No questions asked.) She wants me to "come up with like twenty bucks--maybe forty, tops.." and promises a functional bike. She wants me to go with her into the wooded areas on the trails that scare her--but also call her. I tell her, sadly, "I don't have forty bucks to drop on a bike..." She assures me that "sometime this summer" we will work this out.(I keep thinking of the possum babies...)
Sometimes Judy will call. Sometimes older friends from older times phone.
Occasionally, now that school is out and there are no subbing jobs, I'll go with someone for a cup of coffee. These connections are dear to me. I don't want to go anyplace that is loud--I want to hear them and see them and enjoy their company. Far cry from the old days in CA, when we had to have an activity in order to hang out...a destination to frolic...trouble to get in and out of, with abandon!
Now, if I have company, I want it to be companionable and connected. Otherwise, my mind wanders back to the manuscripts...the blogs...the words boiling inside...and I can't spare the time...don't want to just amble around causing commotion. It isn't about aging--it's about time--and writing.
If no one drops by my essential/extensive social network on-line beckons. But I watch the clock and don't get lost ...there's more to accomplish on-line:
I check out recent job posting sites. I am registered from Worcester to the Western part of Central MA...licensed HS English teacher with thirty years experience...etc. I do the required site shifting and apps and keep up hope and keep networking...so many resumes...so many cover letters...so far: nada. (Except for the bogus Catholic School situation--which I hope and pray will never be repeated in my lifetime...sigh...)It is so hard to take myself seriously as a teacher, as I confront these mountains.
I know I've been successful, before. I know I can handle most kids--including the lost ones, the confused ones, the cocky ones, the feisty ones; the gifted ones; the challenging ones. I've proven it over and again. But nobody is watching. Nobody is listening.
Forget the commercials you see or the adds you read: America isn't really looking for committed teachers...not really. If she were really looking, I'd be found. I'd be utilized. I'd be made to prove my stuff and there would be a committee to see if I was the real deal.
I am. (I keep reminding myself of this fact...)
After my heart and ego get pummeled for a couple hours, I get a break. Mind-numbing-pop- culture: reality t.v. Seinfeld. Fearnet.channel. Animal Planet. Junk food for my entertainment genes.
At eight p.m., Maeve gets her shot (for diabetes). She takes the whole family's coaxing to get her downstairs to get the injection. She's good for the needle, but it is getting her downstairs to face the needle that is the challenge. Mostly, if I turn on the stairwell lights and promise treats and joyful abandon, she comes. (Mostly.) Otherwise it takes Ann's yelling at her to go down--always on her own time, while Mom and Dad and I wait at the bottom of the stairs.
After her shot I can re-enter the room, to write.
Late night: time to edit. Mostly poetry; or editing the day's work on the manuscripts. Perhaps a late blog. Even when I am not typing, I am "writing".
This is a reality that any honest wordsmith will tell you if you ask: we are ALWAYS writing. Our minds don't stop. Our brains don't rest. If a situation in the world touches us, we don't simply react. We don't simply verbalize the angst. Our imaginations kick in and we analyze; we replay; we examine; we research and add to the facts; we formulate an argument; we support our beliefs and insights; we write it out.We write it down. We shift and sift and share what we've written.
Night, for me, when the rest of the household is snoring--or gone to another city-- is the time when my brain aligns itself with the sensations of the day. This is the time when I sort and shake it into a pattern. If the t.v. offers "whitenoise", well, all the better. It screens out the sleeping sounds that rain-down around me. It doesn't stop the thoughts from organizing themselves into the verbiage that will eventually flow out on to some kind of platform or page.
Around four or five a.m. is when sleep shuts me down. Before real light filters into the Eastern windows. Before traffic and people gear up for their day. If I am lucky, I will settle in. I might even dream--sometimes I dream a book. Or a poem. (If I'm really lucky.)
The parents let me sleep in. They understand I am better upstairs as they crank their morning routines. Maeve is attended to. There is no awkward scramble for the coffee or the paper.
If someone else is home, I will probably be nudged awake.Or shaken awake. Or badgered awake...
(If I have an interview or sub job, I am already up and running, even before the parental units.) But now it is summer. I am "just a writer"...again. (Not really something of value, here. Not really a contributor nor a meaningful member of society. Not in a mean way: just in a practical "we told you so if you pursued this life" kind of way...Now we have to take care of you...)
It begins again: I have no job; no family responsibility; no connections; no romantical interest; no house; no gym membership; no hobbies; no lifestyle.
I am just a writer.
My entire life is experienced through this truth: this filter. I cannot defend it nor can I fully explain it. It simply exists ...Not a choice nor a plan of action nor even a belief system; it IS my life.
I am, therefore I write.
It becomes exhausting justifying this. I can't support myself doing it. (Something like three percent of the writers in America can support themselves through their writing--and that was before the New Depression--when magazines and newspapers were at their height...)I am not famous, doing this. I am not even really respected--at least not where people can easily see. I have not found love doing it. (In fact, it has cost me relationships. Something about constantly being in your head or behind a closed door a good deal of the time...) I have found neither enlightenment nor peace. Yet, I continue on...
It is not an addiction, though it shares some similarities. It is not a vocation, though one must have the same committment and stamina and faith. It is not really celebrated (not in the 2000s...) nor seen as sexy--except if one is a successful screenwriter--even then, how many screenwriters can you name?
(Who WROTE your favorite film? Hmmm....)
To be a writer, one simply writes. (Author Diane Vreuls told me that, three decades ago, surrounded by a hundred pages of my short stories...I took her seriously. I've lived this.)
A writer doesn't stop. No matter what. No matter where. Published or put down. Perishing or pushed to heights of success. Doesn't matter. The "next thing" is always the one one pursues.
I thank God/Great Spirt/Great Mystery for all who have put up with this obsession. For all who have contributed to my physical constancy and made a safe space for me to hole up when things have gotten tough. I know they are part of this dance. There is a reason for all of this --somewhere. (I write to make note of all of them; I write to keep a record of these facts. I write so others who come later will know they are not alone. This is a real Path. All of this.)
I am a writer.
This is not a lifestyle.
THIS is my life.
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