If someone had said, "Cathie, one day you will be sitting down at your computer writing what your own truth is." I would have laughed in their faces. And yet that is exactly what I have been hearing for some time now. From friends who have read some of my personal thoughts and beliefs. But I lacked the courage up until a few months ago. I still get nervous about peoples opinions or thoughts about what I write, but as a writer you have accept the criticism along with the positive feedback.
So here I am, a few years after taking a writer's correspondence course writing a blog. I had taken the course because I really thought I wanted to be a writer. Now I realize that I had been seeing myself and purpose for being on this earth through my writing. I had been writing and journaling since a young girl. It was used to get out my fears and pain as well as for fun. Somehow I thought if I could be something, a writer perhaps, then I would know who I was and why I was put on this earth. I believed that somehow I would "find myself" if I just wrote enough. And maybe in some strange way I have. But I suspect there is more to learn and this means more to write. More to risk.
Writing for the public is much different than writing for personal reasons. There is a big difference between writing for money and writing because I get the urge to put thoughts down on paper. I think some people were just meant to have disciplined lives and others were born to, well, to not! I am one of the "not's". I want everything to come easy. Someone once said, "I want to be rich, not get rich." And I ma the same way. I want to be something, someone, but don't want to work at getting there. Or maybe I just have my priorities mixed up. What would happen for instance, if I quit bring work home to do and instead spent more time writing? Or quit watching so much garbage on television because I'm too lazy to do anything else. Yes, it is time to focus on what I truly enjoy and give it more discipline and time.
To become a professional writer takes ore than just wanting to be; it takes dedication, time, (lots of time), energy and discipline. Perhaps if I keep repeating this I will finally get it! I am just not sure I have all it takes. Or maybe I don't have the passion to be a writer as I thought I did. So, does this mean I have thrown all that money out the window, and wasted my instructor's time years back? I hope not. I hope that all I have come to learn about writing and about myself will one day be used to some purpose. Maybe one day I will realize there is nothing to be afraid of in writing down truth and experience.
Or maybe, just maybe, I will realize I have been attempting (on the side) to write non-fiction whn what I ought to be concentrating on is writing non-fiction in a fiction manner! Oh dear, hre it comes again, I can feel myself wanting to end this piece so I can start on another story idea. But this time I write what I believe think or believe in, as I have begun to do in this blog. I continue to push aside the fears and self-doubts and trust my Creator to tell me what to write.
I found old assignments from that course years ago and can see many good pieces for this blog. I also looked back through some of my journals and will be sharing those thoughts and truths as well. Some day perhaps I will reach those who understand and know what it is like to be myself. To be yourself.
There, I have written something. I have to keep my promise to not allow too much time to go by without a post. To practice discipline and courage. Now to my day job!
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