Posts tagged ‘Writing’
Thirty-one days ago, an optimist sat in front of this computer screen and dreamed of writing the first draft of a 50,000-word novel. A challenge of epic proportions that only a small percentage of National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) participants reach between November 1 and November 30.
Today, December 1, she sits before the same computer screen. Her results fall on the side of the majority, the losers, who did not reach the 50,000-word goal. She didn’t even come close.
Yet happiness is the honey on the honeycomb of her soul. It drips into areas never before coated with such a sweet, sticky nourishment. It warms her every nanometer, for she now has an unfeigned commitment to someone, a place she considers home and a weekly client to boot.
Those fortunes came to fruition during the month of November. And while she didn’t “win” NaNoWriMo, she’s never felt more blessed.
For some reason I keep holding myself back. It’s a mental block I suspect. I read about writing. I talk about writing. I read other people’s writing. I write for clients when they pay me to do so. But I refuse to sit down and write something for myself. Why is that? Prevailing wisdom would suggest Fear is the culprit. Wisdom is wise, isn’t it?
One of my 2011 goals was to “write a novel.” Luckily, I didn’t stipulate that it needed to be a “good” novel. There’s a reason first drafts don’t get rushed to the printer. Even luckier for me there’s such a thing as the National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo as the insiders call it. It’s a personal challenge for people to write a 50,000 word novel during the 30 days of November, starting midnight November 1. That’s in an hour.
I’m sure there are people on the east coast perched at their keyboards pounding out what they hope will be the next great work of literature. When midnight strikes Chicago, my wish is to be fast asleep ridding myself of the sinus headache that’s plagued me all day. I don’t think the red wine tonight helped my cause.
Maybe the fact that I’m not rushing to write something the second this “contest” begins is evidence of the larger issue at play. Or maybe I’m tired and am approaching this quest as a marathon not a sprint. I have 30 days to find out.
I am a talented writer.*
I am also a terrible writer, a terrified writer, a truant writer and a writer in transition.
But, am I…a writer?
I dream of the day I’ll introduce myself as such. Currently, when people ask me what I do, I tell them I do PR. That’s what I’ve done the majority of my career. And since I left the 9-5 world, PR is how I’ve made money. But the part I’ve always loved about PR, and the part I moved away from the most in my former position as a managing director of a PR boutique, is the writing.
A few years ago I left my full-time job, moved across the country with my husband at the time and tried to start writing. Not writing to help corporations make more money by differentiating themselves from the masses, which I’m good at, but writing for pure pleasure. Writing because that’s what my soul needed.
I discovered an amazing writer’s community called Richard Hugo House and formed a writer’s group with a handful of people I met there. We met twice a month at my place and, without fail, I rushed those afternoons to write something new I could read to the group. I started many pieces. I finished none. I wasn’t ready. My life was in upheaval. I was afraid to write about the truth and I couldn’t bring myself to create a fictional world. Instead I wrote technical white papers and case studies for clients, and I blogged about the mundane and buried pain in those posts. Purpose did not know my name. I was lost.
My return to Chicago nearly two years ago was as a single woman with a dog in tow. Since then I’ve tried to discover who I am, what I want, and how to stop being afraid of those answers.
I have a friend who says she wants to be me when she grows up: she has a husband, two kids, a cat, a fish, a house and a full-time job; while I spend my days sleeping in, walking my dog, playing tennis, sailing, reading, watching TV, going out with friends, and spending time with the super fantastic man in my life. Occasionally, though not lately, I work. I can’t complain. My life is GOOD. But there’s a void. My soul is gasping to be enveloped in, capital P, Purpose.
Architects provide shelter for people, chefs and clergy nourish humanity, mankind is healed by physicians. But what do I do? I enjoy myself and laugh as much as possible. But. What. Do. I. Do?
It’s time I found out.
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*My old corporate communications boss, a self-proclaimed talented writer, told me this in an elevator at the ad agency where I interned 13 years ago. Whether I find his comment to be fiction or creative non-fiction depends on the day.
Heidi (Lading) Kiec, Freelance Corporate Copywriter 