Being caught up in life and a bit stuck on the next installment of Cara Bay, I decided to enter a few words on writing. I mean, how many of us honestly prefer talking about writing over struggling through the real thing?
Just a Note: This post is appearing both here and on my substack, “Do You Know Where YOUR Story Is?” Thanks to those here who read my stories at that site.
Someplace in my various essays, I wrote about starting to write at age 11, with a long story hand-scribbled in a notebook dotted by messy gobs of ink. It was something about a vase of flowers and a bunch—at least one, anyway—of fairies. I had never enjoyed myself more or felt more industrious than when I finished that story. I was a writer. Or would be. I knew it in my very deepest soul.
You could be a writer and still be anything else, too, right? Plus, you could write without end, like—until you were dead. Or something like that.
Well—um, sure. You’re 11. Believe that.
Okay, I’m not famous, and I can’t claim to have made oodles of cash from my writing. But it has taken me interesting places and given me opportunities to do things I might not have. Kind of a la George Plimpton without the frills and entree into celebrity society.
Still, I’ve been lucky enough to interview race car drivers about how they get their meals at the track—meeting their personal chefs, getting to hang out in the pits at Bristol Motor Speedway and discovering how good race track barbecue can be. I took my first small airplane ride; I swear the white knuckles did not affect my note-taking. I’ve talked with breast cancer survivors, mobile auto mechanics, and Habitat for Humanity recipients working to build their first owned home. Coaches, teachers, Chambers of Commerce. A retired major taking his place in the community at the head of one of our civic agencies. And I attended a hot puppy yoga class; it was only for observation, but I loved the owner’s take on how she treated both humans and canines.
A Lot of it? Perspective: My first assignment was to interview a retiring Army chaplain. Knowing that chaplains are there for the troops and not for battle, I asked him about what else he did with his time. Turns out he was in charge of something you might call community relations. For him, that meant helping locals rebuild things like schools and hospitals from the destruction war had wrought. The goal was not simply to free the people from their conquerors, but to help rebuild their lives and heal, making new international friends in the process. Huh. Wonder where that kind of chaplain is today?
Sometimes, my subjects let me know how much they liked my article about them. There’s validation in that, but also appreciation to warm your soul.
Love of writing allowed me insight into what teachers face, as I volunteered to run a writing club at my kids’ schools. (This was done with a hard line caveat: I AM NOT a teacher. I can coach writing and share what I know. I CANNOT TEACH.) Working with the kids, I was able to see the trials teachers endure, and to feel the satisfaction when a student ‘gets it’ and wants more.
There’s a lot I haven’t done. I haven’t received awards. I haven’t written a best seller. I haven’t done workshops at any big conferences. However, I was able to meet and converse with other writers higher up on the ladder than me. Including getting some cool advice while driving one of our guest speakers back and forth from his hotel. Thank you Larry Brooks.
Occasionally my work gave me celebrity access. NASCAR drivers for one. And I interviewed Al Roker by phone about his barbecue book while he was covering the Olympics. But, everyone is a celebrity to someone. Ordinary people have compelling stories of their own. Writing their stories added quality to my life, giving me new perspectives and making me tackle subject matter I might otherwise have missed. I was always learning.
And always, ALWAYS, there is fodder for the fiction I write. I’ve learned to smuggle those incidents in carefully—lawsuits and ranting neighbors and all that. But besides plot and scene material, there’s the hopes and dreams and philosophies of people I’ve met that’s woven into my work. Frequently they shared perspectives different from my own. Many had dedicated their lives to careers that—while sources of income—were also providing resources and help to their communities. When we look around, it is amazing how many people work at jobs more for what their soul gets out of it, rather than the mere acquisition of money.
Writing IS always with you, even if you don’t make much money from it. A very few people like it that way. They write personal journals to highlight their lives and help them make their way through. Some share their written private thoughts with only a few close friends. Clearly, the payback from friends makes it worth the effort. Journalists obviously write for a living—or at least for pay—but I will bet it’s only a handful for whom that is the only reason. Novelists could be described as getting the best of both worlds.
Most of us write because it is, most simply, what we do and what (rather than who) we are. The exposure and experiences we go through and the friends we make are enriching enough. And the growth it encourages from seeing more of the world in greater human detail, with all it’s variations, is invaluable. I will never understand the mentality that does not grasp that people were created—intentionally—to be strange and different and full of contradictory ideas and astonishing habits. Humankind is not here to be homogenized. It is here to be engaged, embraced, and celebrated.
So, don’t give up your writing. Not for any reason other than the most compelling and unavoidable. Write for pay, write for pleasure, but definitely write for the intangible personal gains. You will go so many places.
