Writing-Not Writing

As soon as I learned how, I started writing. I can remember waking up in the middle of the night and turning on the light to write peoms and stories. My parents got used to seeing my light come on and stay on for hours. Mostly, I wrote poetry back then (in Jr. High), long, ponderous angst-filled poems that I always threw away with the light of day. Writing has been my way of making sense of problems and working through bad times.

When daddy died, as soon as I could, I sat down and wrote a detailed account of the day, so I could come to terms with what had happened. I didn't necessarily feel better for it, but seeing it on paper helped me understand the reality of it.

Then, I got to High School and started writing for the school paper. And, suddenly, people were actually reading what I wrote, and telling me when they liked what I had to say, and sometimes when they didn't.


In college, my friend, L, and I worked up our nerve to go to the Traveler office and apply for jobs. We were the youngest reporters working there, and no doubt, the source of amusement for the rest of the newspaper staff. We were simply bowled over when the editor came around the first time and handed us paychecks. We got paid! Wow! Not a lot of pay, but, Holy Cats! We were getting paid to do something we would have done for free.

After my college days were over, and I was married, I always managed to find a way to write, sometimes in the form of letters to the editor. Every now and then, I'd be paid for an article in a magazine, but, most often, I wrote for publications knowing there wouldn't be a paycheck involved. Pay or no pay, the satisfaction came in seeing something I had written in print.

Then, I got a job where editing and writing the company newsletter was part of my job description. It wasn't my main duty, but it served to keep me relatively sane during tense times on the job.

So, today, someone told me that I really ought to start writing. "You have a way with words. You should be writing." I told her that I wrote for my blog almost every day. Imagine my surprise when she replied, "That's not writing. That's scribbling!"

And, with those five words, my first reaction was that she managed to trivialize everything I had spent a lifetime writing. I mulled that over for the rest of the day and finally came to the conclusion that, no, she was dead wrong. She simply doesn't understand creating something without the expectation of pay.

And the blog? Well, where else can one actually publish something ever day or two and have it read by people from all over the world? And, then, best of all, receive comments on your writing. Now, that's satisfaction!