Now, That Hurts!

I have been writing as long as I can remember. As  child and in my early teens, I wrote short stories and poems, for my own amusement. I even used to wake up in the middle of the night to make notes on an idea for a story.

When I was in High School, I was on the school newspaper staff, where I wrote everything from news to features to editorials. A couple of my stories and editorials were either reprinted or quoted in the New York Times during the integration crisis at Central High.

In college, I was on the newspaper staff. In those days, the paper was operated independent of the University. It was run like a business and we were paid employees. Finally, the University decided to take over the paper and I resigned in protest, along with the rest of the staff. After that, I got a job writing, among other duties, for the Alumni magazine. That, too was a paid job.

In my Journalism classes, I wrote a couple of feature stories which were printed by the Arkansas Gazette. I was paid for these stories at their going rate.

My point is, I think I can safely call myself a writer, even though I haven't written much since I came to Harrison, apart from news stories in the local paper, for various clubs. I always seemed to be elected "Reporter".

When I went to work, I designed, wrote and edited the company newsletter. There was a printshop there, which helped make the newsletter look professional. Another employee acted as photographer, and eventually, we welcomed other employees as volunteer "reporters". I spearheaded this for almost 15 years and   thoroughly enjoyed the experience.

On my retirement, my son introduced me to blogging, and I re-discovered my love for writing and acquired decided fondness for expressing my opinions. I also discovered the satisfaction that comes from knowing that others are reading and, (dare I say it?), even even enjoying what I have to say.

So, when my friend tells me that blogging is not REALLY writing, it hurts my feelings. She says this often, and adds that I don't have the "credentials" to consider myself a writer, because I don't get paid for it or have a Journalism degree.

I never argue with her strange notion, because she doesn't own a computer and would never be convinced otherwise. She said it again yesterday, along with the usual scoffing about people I communicate with through comments they make on my blog, and comments I make on theirs.  She'd like you to know that you aren't "real" people.

I could tell her that the people I have met through blogging are more "real" than most of the people with whom I am acquainted here in my town.  I can tell her that she just doesn't know what she's missing.

There! I feel better, now. Thanks for letting me vent.

Stay tuned.

Wordzzle

Jay, at Cynical Bastard, got me interested in reading the entries for Raven's Wordzzle game, and more or less dared me to give it a try. So here goes.




Five words:

History, Shylock, myrmidon, frozen, incapacitated

Due to a history of dealing with the local Shylock and his club-wielding myrmidon, Bruce, I am incapacitated inside the frozen tundra that is my mind.

-----

Ten Words

Fruitcake, necromancer, gibberish, Marshland, Lone Ranger, hog-wild, Effluvia, plaintiff , phonograph, Fern





“What’s that?” asked my friend, Fern, as the strains of the William Tell Overture sounded in the next room.

“Oh, my brother’s listening to his favorite radio show, “The Lone Ranger”.

“Sounds like gibberish, to me,” said Fern. And we turned our attention back to our dolls.

The year was 1948, the year that I discovered that I could talk to the dead. Just the night before, I had overheard my father telling my mother that it wasn’t natural for me to have so many imaginary friends. Imaginary?

I turned to Fern, “Are you imaginary?” I asked. “No,” she chuckled. “Then, why am I the only person who can see and hear you?” I asked, confused. She shrugged her shoulders and said calmly, “Because I’m dead.”

As the years went by, I learned the term for it. I was a Necromancer. By the time I was a teenager, I was acquainted with more of the dead than the living. At one point, I tried to turn off this unusual talent. But, they wouldn’t leave me alone. Sometimes, I would wake up in the night and hear music that sounded like a scratched record, played on a phonograph. Other times, I was confronted with a newly-deceased spirit that emitted an odor similar to marshland effluvia.

Naturally, it was impossible to keep my ability a secret. I tried to explain this talent to my parents, who wasted no time getting me into therapy. Then, when the therapist became convinced that I was the real deal, my parents made appointments for themselves, to learn how to cope with this changeling daughter they felt they no longer knew.

My brother blabbed early-on, of course. He couldn’t help himself. He went hog-wild with newfound popularity at school. Thereafter, I was called various names, but the kindest and most common one was “fruitcake.”

After law school, specializing in the area of wrongful death, I became a Plaintiff’s attorney, representing the families of the dead. Until my retirement, two years ago, I was very successful at obtaining large amounts of money for my clients, as well I should, since the dead could tell me what caused their untimely deaths, whether it be from a faulty appliance or at the hands of someone else.

Lately, however, since my retirement, it has been increasingly difficult to tell who’s dead and who’s alive. Everyone wears white, here, and they refuse to enlighten me. They keep wanting me to guess. I’ve never been especially good at that.

No Resolutions for Me.

I used to make a long list of New Year's Resolutions each year. And, by the end of January, I had broken all of them. Sometimes, it seemed as though I was just trying to break them, it happened so quickly. And, subconsciously, maybe I was. I have never been one to take orders, even from myself, and those resolutions seemed a lot like orders and were stress-inducing, and the last thing I needed was more stress. So, I stopped making serious resolutions several years ago.

My resolutions list always started with a promise to get on a diet and stay on it. HAhahahaha. I should never have put that on the list. What was I thinking? The only thing I had for comfort was food. In the last few years, I have comforted my self into another size in clothing, and if I comfort myself any more, I'll need a larger recliner. So, maybe I can go so far as to make a very ambiguous resolution to try to do better, and choose comfort foods that are a bit less caloric.

My second resolution was always to get organized. That was 'way too much going against my nature. I know a leopard can't change its spots, and a natural-born slob can't turn into a housekeeper with a place for everything and everything in its place. I once knew a woman who was so compulsive about everything being in its place that she used to treat everyone to a viewing of her one jumbled junk drawer, just to prove she was normal. I once accused her of waxing her driveway.

Then, there were the years that I resolved to get serious about writing the Great American Novel. Oh, puhleez! You can't expect a free-spirited will-o-the-wisp such as myself to have the discipline to even make an outline, much less write a chapter or two a day - every day. I would have to have a schedule - write at a certain time every day. And, what time would that be? Early morning? No, that would cut into my coffee-drinking, newspaper reading, crossword puzzle working, and I'd probably have to miss "The View". No, not early morning. Afternoon? What about my nap? No, not afternoon. Nights? When would I read? Or work on my blog, or read YOUR blogs? See? There's just not time for everything. My art will have to suffer.

I always resolved to be a nicer person, until I realized that I was already as nice as it was going to get, so my friends would just have to live with it. Can I help it if I'm opinionated and outspoken, and can, at times, be a bit tactless? You have to take the good with the bad. I used to worry a lot about other people's feelings, and then, one day I realized those other people didn't seem to have the same worry about me. So, F--k 'em if they can't take a joke.

When my kids were small, I resolved to be nicer to them and not lose my temper, and to do more things with them. Invariably, the next day, when I got home from work, basking in the glow of maternal affection, one or the other of them would be standing in the door, and as I got out of the car, would say something like, "We're out of ___________" (fill in the blank), and I'd get pissed and forget that silly resolution. Kids are God's way of paying you back for the way you treated your own parents.

So. No resolutions from me. Nuh-uh. I'm a lot older and wiser, now. I'll just sit back and watch everyone else break theirs, one at a time. And, I'll smile.

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!