“I wanted to be a writer, that's all. I wanted to write about it all. Everything that happens in a moment. The way the flowers looked when you carried them in your arms. This towel, how it smells, how it feels, this thread. All our feelings, yours and mine. The history of it, who we once were. Everything in the world. Everything all mixed up, like it's all mixed up now. And I failed. I failed. No matter what you start with it ends up being so much less. Sheer fucking pride and stupidity.”
~Richard Brown, character in
The Hours by Michael Cunningham
This is my goal. Well, up until the line “And I failed...”
I want to be a writer. I’ve wanted to be a writer since I was thirteen years old. Good god, has it really been twenty years? Wow. Sometimes, I just don’t know where the time goes...
I found out that I could write by accident. But I loved it immediately. I found out that this crazy imagination and my ability to store everything could turn into something amazing if I put it in sentences and applied the rules of grammar. When my humor seeped through my pen, it was magical. When I put that pen against the paper, I felt a freedom I had never known.
Why did it take so long? Why didn’t I know this before I was thirteen? Mainly because I spent the first years of my little life riding my bike and playing on the playground and climbing trees. I love the outdoors. I was too busy to sit down and concentrate on a thought. I lived in a small town and I didn’t ever have to be home after school. I played.
When we moved to a larger town, that kind of stopped. I still played sports, but the freedom and bike rides and tree climbing had to stop. So I became a home-body. Then, in seventh grade, I had an English teacher that blew my mind. She taught us parts of speech and grammar and writing. I totally got it! Though I already knew about the parts of speech (I can still name all
23 helping verbs), there was something about her style made it really interesting. And she liked my writing. I found it effortless, which in my young mind meant I wasn’t really trying. She pulled me aside and told me that one does not equal the other. It is, in fact, the exact opposite. Effortless equals gift.
I began to try this thing out.
Was I a poet? Sort-of. But not really.
Was I a non-fiction writer? No.
Could I make up crazy funny stories? Yes.
Could I write if you tell me what to write and how long to make it and exactly what it is supposed to be about? Only well enough to get the grade.
Does writing soothe me? Most definitely.
Does writing excite the hell out me? Oh yeah!
I began trying to write like the writers that inspired me. I thought I could be the next
Virginia Woolf (minus the drowning in the lake part). I have been reading since I was three, so I had vast material to go on. I thought maybe I had a little
Shel Silverstein in me, crossed with some
Judy Blume.
I wanted my writing to be relatable. But, at thirteen, how do you know what relatable is? I knew I related to Judy Blume books more than
The Babysitter’s Club, but only now I know it is not because I wanted freckles, and I certainly did not want boobs!. (For the record, it is because Ms. Blume wrote about real life, all wrapped up in a funny little bow.)
I continued to read. I would spend hours in
Barnes & Noble, searching for the perfect next read, or maybe two. I am notorious for reading three, sometimes four, books at once. I can’t stop reading, and if I don’t have the book I started with me, I’ll just pick up another one. (And I’m not very organized in the morning, so that happens a lot!)
Somewhere along the line, I picked up
The Hours by Michael Cunningham. Wow. That book turned me around. It gave
Mrs. Dalloway an amazing life – a human life, across three time periods. It nudged me read Virginia Woolf’s books again, and fall in love with her all over again. It brought pen to paper, seeing things around me again, as I had not seen them – from the writer’s perspective – in many, many years.
As I related to Richard, a famous writer though totally dissatisfied with where life had plopped him down, I began to feel. When the movie came out, I rushed to the theater and came out rejuvenated. I wrote like crazy for a long time.
But then I majored in English in college, thinking it would only reinforce me. Not so much. I became discouraged by the necessity and the rules and the lack of freedom.
So I stopped.
Completely.
Writing was no longer fun, it was for a grade.
I graduated eight months ago. I’ve been doing this blog for about a month. I really wanted to start writing again. I really began to miss it. And so far, it gives me the high I remember.
Why do I tell you this? All day Friday, this quote was in my head. I watched the clock, counting down the minutes until quitting time so I could write about wanting to be a writer. Sometimes a thought comes to me, and I have to write it on my wrist to remember it. (I usually don’t write on my hand because I am obsessive about washing my hands.) This one required no wrist-notes. I knew it. I knew that I wanted to tell you about how I came to write. I knew I wanted to share with you how one little paragraph in a great big book and a movie that changed my life. I wrote it as soon as work was over Friday. This is the first chance I've had to type it in.
I guess I am a writer in cycles. I am happy to be back in the circle of writing again. My life is tons better during the days and weeks and months when I am actively pursuing this. I have an outlook on life that can encompass life from many perspectives. I see life differently when I’m writing, because little things inspire me. I want to write about the big things, yes. But also the little things – “…This towel, how it smells, how it feels, this thread.…”
Thank you for indulging me in my quest.
