Ive had my ass kicked for a lifetime for saying and writing what I think and feel. The minute I began to talk, I talked in full sentences and made candid observations of what was presented to me. My mother was horrified to have an observant talker on her hands and wondered out loud many times how she could have given birth to such a child. Nuns in my Catholic school were alarmed. Abusive authority figures of every stripe threatened me in an infinite number of ways. Professional mentors gently warned me. Purveyors of false dichotomies tried to shame me into verbalizing only thoughts that were vetted (by them) for positivism. People who couldnt explain their way out of a paper bag were irritated into a rage by my habit of backing up my observations with equally irritating facts and . . . the WORST of my habits . . . efforts at logical analysis conducted right out loud or in writing. People accused me of having an addiction to watching myself type. 68 years later, Im still in the grip of that motivation: the urge to verbalize and *write down* what I am processing internally. Some people like that are called writers, eh? I am not a writer by virtue of talent or publishing success. I am a writer because of a lifelong compulsion to write down what I am thinking and feeling. It has been a vital aid to me in figuring out what the hell is going on around me. Im not afraid of my own opinion because I put it to more rigorous tests than most people do, but also because that process it is a foundation stone of my character. I know I can change even my own deeply held opinions, as soon as I hear a construction of reality that is better than my own. Writing helps me test my own constructions. Arguing with different opinions helps me do that too. It has been this way for many creative and thoughtful people as long as speech and the written word have existed. I dont make resolutions but I do critically examine my life every year and put it to the test and re-dedicate myself to what is still important to me and what Im willing to ACT on. I get a lot of clarity from the ongoing evaluation of what I really want. Among many overpowering motivations I have is the urge to write, to formulate what I am thinking and feeling in words I share with others. So I am going to follow that lifelong desire and focus more time and energy on writing the 2 books Im working on and to that end I am going to try and get the first chapters of each one online as fast as possible and publish each step I take and also describe what its like to write a personal memoir and an historical novel. With these 2 books I am not trying to accomplish anything at the outset by set my thoughts in words and launch them into the universe. That is the basic motivation of a writer. Hope I live another 20 years at least because I could write every day, every hour, for 20 years and still never exhaust the urge. Of course . . . I will naturally intersperse my writings with positive pictures of flowers and baby animals.
Posted on: Thu, 01 Jan 2015 16:41:31 +0000
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