Monday
Nov082010
If You Want to be a Writer
November 8, 2010 * * * * * Posted by: guest blogger 
If you want to be a writer, you have to write every day.
I was 10 when I heard this. My fourth grade teacher told me, a stern woman who wore dresses, hose and had perfect hair. She was strict and demanding and I loved her. I went home, dug a notebook out of my parent’s junk drawer and started to write. I wrote every day that year, mostly about what I ate and favorite songs.
Years went by and journal writing became a ritual. Sometimes I wrote in small, cloth- covered diaries that I locked with a key. Sometimes I wrote in notebooks that my parents discarded. By college, I’d settled on my journal of choice: 81/2 X 11 inches, hardback, no lines. An artist sketchbook.
I’d also settled on content. No more lists of things I’d eaten or favorite songs.
Instead I talked to my journal the way I’d been starved for someone to talk to me – endless analysis of what I’d done and said (and how others behaved). Questions about why I felt the way I did. Ruthless second guessing. Hypotheses. Plans. Desires. I berated myself for stupid things I said. I rejoiced in what I’d done well.
Mostly I dreamed about who I wanted to be and what I wanted to do.
And no one would know because it was secret, a dialogue with myself that no one would ever read.
In college I kept my journal with me all day in my backpack. Later it came with me on travels to North Carolina, Maine, Colorado; much later to Thailand, Hong Kong, London, and Rome. I wrote anywhere, at any time. In airplanes, trains, cars; on hotel bathroom floors, in libraries and restaurants. When I finished a journal, I’d put it away and start a new one.
I felt comfort, peace!, after getting everything down on paper. Sometimes I wrote, “I couldn’t wait to tell you!” And “I knew you’d get it!”
It saved my life.
And kept me isolated from others.
Because I was talking to “someone” who could never talk back.
Then came professional writing jobs. Children. Graduate studies. Home owning. Pets. Days went by when I wouldn’t write. Then weeks. I remember being up in the middle of the night, nursing my second child, and seeing my journal on my desk. How long had it been? A month? Such guilt. I’m not writing every day! I miss you!
Often I’d carry my journal around the house, intending to write after I changed one more diaper, filled one more juice cup. Hours later it would still be there, waiting, a friend neglected. I began to feel resentful. I live in the world now. Don’t be so demanding!
When I did write, I was overwhelmed. How could I possibly write about everything I’d felt in the last two months? And why did I feel such need to keep track of every emotion and experience? Maybe it was time to just feel and experience.
Years went by.
Then five years ago, as my fiction writing career took off, I came back to my journal. The kids were older. My days were open. I began writing, not only about my life but about the characters in my novels. Who are they? What do they feel? How do I show this?
Journaling about my characters and their inner lives was natural, easy. I’d spent a lifetime preparing for it.
I still think of my journal as a friend, a trusted confidant, but I no longer worry about how often I write. No guilt. Just gratefulness.
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Special guest post today by middle school/young adult book writer Karen Day who blogs over at 'Karen Day'. Thank you for joining us here today, Karen, and for your wonderfully inspiring story.
Reader Comments (13)
that photo Marcie, that is one pieve of photographic art. DOF is great as well as POV. Great work
First of all, Karen, thanks for writing for us! Secondly, I would love it if my 5th-grader grandson could sit in on one of your classes. His mind goes 100 mph and I would love to see him inspired by someone like you.
Your journals and how you have viewed them has fascinated me. I wrote journals, too, every day for years, in college and in my marriage. Did I expect anyone to ever read them? I don't know. They were more factual than anything else but I always wondered if anyone would be able to read through the lines of my double life as a gay woman married to a straight man. Before moving to The Netherlands a year ago, I had to make a decision about all those journals, still packed in a box. In the end I decided not even I needed to read them...so why would anyone else! Now they're gone and I don't second-guess the loss. But I do think about the writing of them...now that you've rekindled that memory. They served a purpose, even if I didn't always share all my feelings. I think I knew I could fit the pieces together if I ever had to.
Anyway, thank you. I love the way you write.
You've expressed my feelings about journaling so perfectly! A daily dialogue with myself. A private conversation. A one in which I'm the only judge and always the harshest critic..but from which I can grow and change.
Thanks so much for your beautiful words..and for joining us today!!!
Thank you for sharing this with us today. I am learning here today.
It's nice to know what writing did you for you. I used to keep a diary too but was always wouldn't always put my deepest thoughts down. I didn't want anyone else to know. How it would have changed my life if I had. Thank you for your wonderfully written post!
this made me laugh out loud. i tossed most of those college journals, and in recent years, they are about what i ate with either a calorie count or weight watcher point value!
truly, the joy of the post, in addition to marcie's photo, was that your dream of what you wanted to be came true. now, you inspire others which includes me. thanks.
I was never one to write in a journal or diary. I tried a couple of times and quickly bored myself with the trivial things I wrote in it - of course, I was much, much younger then, but truthfully, it still doesn't interest me. I enjoyed, however, reading about your time spent journaling and what it did for you. And I wonder about the isolation... Thank you for joining us here today.
As a writer who's written in journals all my life, loved this piece!
I have always kept a journal although it has not always been written in daily. But I know it is there when I need it and that works for me.
Thank you for sharing your story here, I love the way you show us that life sometimes gets in the way of your passion but that it is possible to come back to it.
Karen, thank you for this wonderful post. I loved your thoughts about your journal writing - I did write in journals a LOT and never really asked why, then my daughter was born and I never got 100% back to journaling, except on travels. This post has opened my eyes, and I understand your sentence about isolation pretty well.
I journal. It is a way of caring for my self. This is a beautiful post, thank you for sharing.
I'm learning new things today. Thanks for a wonderful post.
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