Writing: Trust it and it Will Give You What you Need (12)

Pen to Paper

Pen to paper is how it started. I was ten, I think, I could have been younger, but my love of writing started early. I wrote poetry, kept a diary, even wrote short news reports about what happened every day. By-lines and all. MAJ Global Times and then my written word would become live action commentary. I would report the news, like an anchor women, to my dolls and stuffed animals. A microphone courtesy of one giant Tinker Toy and a wadded up ball of construction paper. WMAJ a station out of wherever I was living at the time: Los Angeles, Honolulu, Salt Lake City, Denver to name just a few.

Once I moved back to California, my home state, I felt like it was a clean slate, an opportunity for me to meet some friends, become more of a correspondent. New uniform, new location- I was hoping I would maybe not be popular, but at least not the bottom of the food chain. Even a simple weekend weather girl would be nice. Get noticed but also have plenty of time to stay under the radar per se. But alas, same old situation- Them: Mean Girls, Me: Brunt of their meanness. So my writing became more prevalent and my isolation, welcomed. So out of that situation came a blessing- I learned to express myself in my writing. It became my lifeline.

I was a writer, thank you universe. I have a shipping trunk full of journals, diaries and letters to myself from my childhood. Some of them date back to 1981. A treasure trove of my troubles and turmoils of youth. They are a true gift. They remind me, nothing is permanent. We all become adults and we can chose to carry those with us as growth experiences or heavy baggage. I use them as the seeds for my writing. In some way or another, they pop up in my blogs, stories and my current endeavor of novel writing. They linger but they do not blind.

It took awhile for my voice to emerge, developed and honed, but when it did- my journals became more poetic, my commentary more visual, my tone purposeful and meaningful. Then the three merged. My voice was defiant, it spoke the truth- but it preferred to stay private, locked away in a steamer trunk. Until one day as an adult I discovered blogging. I figured out WMAJ and MAJ Global News were still active and on the scene. They finally had a medium, a platform. Thus my two blogs came to fruition.

Cue newsroom music....we have all heard a version of this tune...you can hear it right now, I know you can.

Fingers to Keys

There was a brown out in my mind for a few weeks at the end of 2019. My creativity was blocked, my words sank, they just couldn't swim to the surface. I chose to catch an inner tube and float down stream- to let the words gain momentum on their own, knowing eventually they would make it to the mouth of the river too. I just had to pitch a tent and hang out for a bit. Then slowly, I saw them, floating down stream and to shore, piling up on the riverbank like beautiful, iridescent minerals, waiting to be gathered and polished.

We all started writing for our unique reasons. For me, it was an escape. I had to write, it was my salvation, liberation, preservation. As a young adult it was my only voice and I kept it hidden. As an adult words have become my security blanket- they whisper in my ear, they come so naturally to me when I write. They somehow always seem to find me. For some of us, we need to float down stream frequently, let the current carry us and that is how our imaginations get illuminated. Others, words follow us around, like sparkles, flickering constantly. For me, and so many of you out there, it is a middle road we journey on and words, they may flicker in the evening sky and we may lose them in the brightness of the sun. But, eventually they find us and us them.

Writing should never be forced. When we gather up the words and conscript them to our will- they often fight back and our prose falls flat. Then we get in a rut. We begin to find writing a chore rather than a wondrous, whimsical journey.

For me it begins with- a deep breath, closing my eyes, seeing the opening sentence. Feeling the words unscramble into a single pin point, one idea. The magic of writing, is that the process is unique for everyone. Whatever your purpose, simply, allow it to be itself. Relax and climb into that inner tube once in awhile. Then it will always be there for you. Respect, admire and eagerly await its presence- for when you do, it will always give you what you need.