The Writing Life

I write for the pleasure, but it's not easy. It’s not a natural skill for me. I learned through lessons and practice and dissappointing manuscripts. It's tough getting started because, even with a story in mind, where it starts on the page is not always where it ends. It's tough to keep going, especially when I think I've written myself into a corner and have to edit myself out into a new direction. Despite all this, writing soothes my soul. Once I get going, writing calms me at the same time it energizes me. The hours fly by as I stare at the screen, spilling words faster than I can type. When my ideas, musings and stories are concrete and shareable, I cheer.

Steven King's first manuscript was rejected by 13 agents before an agent picked signed him. It takes time to be found, years or more likely never. I’m impatient so the agent route wasn’t going to happen. I turned to a company that captured the publishing business, turning it upside down, making self-publishing possible. However, even with self-publishing, to become known, you must be your own publishing powerhouse, agent and author, churning out two books a year and marketing them across multiple social media and critics begging for good reviews. And that’s just the promotional beginning. Just thinking about that continues to exhaust, frustrate and dishearten me.

Business writing is different. Clients paid for instructional design, technical writer, and proposal writing. As a business consultant before the ubiquities of social media, I co-authored books and wrote articles for business journals who were always hungry for content. Our books were marketing tools, gifts to potential clients. Business journal articles built business awareness and brand reputation. Later as a professor, my research and published results were worthy of the institution where I taught.

I won't be famous or make money from fiction, so why do I write in my 70’s. Writing gives my life discipline and structure. I forces new ways of thinking and keeps my creativity flowing. I start with a page or two of words, then go back, enriching them, layering in plot, characters and dialogue again and again just as an artist paints a canvas. I love it when my characters speak to me, sometimes in whispers or at night so noisily that I can't sleep. They force me to listen to them, to capture what they're telling me.

Writing is my vocation, my calling and I take my time at it, soaking up every moment of enjoyment and pain. If I don’t like what’s lands the page, I rewrite, let it settle, then return to shape it again. Then repeat the cycle until it satisfies me. Every time I rush, my writing dissapoints both me and my readers.