Sept. 30, 2001
I was going through a secret box I keep hidden in the back of the closet in an old wooden chest. I call it my inspiration box.
It’s full of oddities, pictures, poems, sayings, childhood drawings, love notes, letters and everything in between. Sometimes when I’m feeling blocked or unsure, I begin the adventure of pouring through all that I’ve collected.
Today, I found a small (9cmX13CM) booklet from 1916 when my grandmother taught at a school. Inside were three poems meant to encourage its graduates. However, 85 years later, one of the poems by Longfellow is encouraging me.
A Psalm of Life by Longfellow
“Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fat;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labour and to wait.
What I find so profound about that is the fact that not only is he encouraging you to do things, but he’s also encouraging you to be patient with the outcome.
As a writer, you sometimes want to write, have it published, and then have instantaneous feedback. You want to know what’s happening to your piece, where it is in the universe, who is reading it and what they think.
Sometimes, however, all you can do is write something the best that you know how, and then just wait.
With my first magazine article out, a part of me is so curious as to how it’s being received. I want to know whose read it, how many have read it and what they thought of it. But I know that all I can really control is the part where I did the writing. I have to wait for the rest.
Sometimes that’s really hard, to just give up control like that. To release something into the world and just let it be.
Sept. 29, 2001
I went out tonight to the cafe with Chris to celebrate my article being accepted into another magazine and also to talk about my docent program and my upcoming art class.
He sipped his coffee and I my chai tea and we talked about what part creativity played in our lives and how important it was to not just myself, but to him as well.
I told him that if I do get another job down the road it will be in a field that I am loving. This is why my art class & training as a Docent at the Art Museum have been very important to me – they’re opening my eyes to new directions and paths that I might one day want to be on.
However, right now, I just want to write 100% of the time, because that’s when I’m the happiest, most content and also, the proudest.
I discussed with him money concerns. Although we live simply and totally within our means I can’t help but sometimes feel like I’m bringing in less than I should – or could. He reminded me that we are already taken care of and anything more is just a bonus. And that by writing and going to art school, I am investing in myself, and if I can’t invest in myself than what I’m really saying is I don’t believe in myself.
And I believe in all of this more than anything.
So we chatted for quite some time, long after our drinks went empty. And as we were chatting some man next to us began to talk to us.
He asked us what we did.
And without hesitation, without blinking an eye, without stuttering or trying to think, I said, “I’m a writer.”
That felt so good. I had been so shy about it before, always afraid the person would ask me more questions than I could handle and I’d come out looking like an ass and not, in fact, a writer.
But tonight, I was confident. And when he asked me what I wrote for I told him that I wrote articles for magazines.
“My wife’s been wanting to do that for years,” he said.
“She should try it,” I said back. “It’s actually pretty easy.”
“Easy? That’s probably easy for you to say,” he said.
“All you have to do is try,” I said back.
Sept. 26, 2001
I have written many journal entries for this site. They’re sitting tucked away on my hard drive in such a disheveled fashion. There are the basic .txt files, the slightly modified .doc files and the almost but not quite done .html files.
I don’t, however, have any complete ones to share. I’ve been trying really hard to finish them, and I think that’s my problem.
When I first started this site is was with such basic, naive intentions. I just wanted to share in a really simple quick way what I was feeling, doing or going through with regards to my evolution as a writer.
And that was enough.
However, a couple of months ago my site was recognized with an award and within two days I had over 50,000 hits – not the normal 500 or so per day I usually get. And with all those hits came a lot of email.
While a lot were supportive, a lot were very critical, especially of my grammar. I didn’t want to write articles and perfectly articulated pieces in my journal entries because they were supposed to be as honest and as real as possible. But because I had received so much email about my poor grammar, I thought perhaps these strangers were right, and I should change my format.
So I did.
I started to work really hard at language and punctuation. I double checked my nouns and verbs and made sure it all made sense.
Also, around this time I started to get a floor of email from people who encouraged what I was doing. They’d tell me how they wish they could do it, how they’d follow me through my journey or they hoped I would find success with this somehow.
I started to feel pressure to be inspiring and achieve some kind of success. I felt I was not only living out my dream for myself, but for all those other people who couldn’t. That was a very heavy load to bare, and I started to crumble slightly. But I felt I had carry it because I had some kind of duty. That lead me to no longer write how I was feeling but instead to write how I thought I should be feeling.
So I didn’t write that one day I was so inspired and creative and the next day there was nothing coming out of my brain. Instead I wrote about only the good things that were going on and tried to focus solely on those. I didn’t want people to think that if I was having troubles that they would too. I didn’t want to come off as unsure anymore. I felt I had to be inspiring and “on” all the time, even if I was the complete opposite that day. I felt I had to have uplifting endings to all my entries, even if there wasn’t one. I became more guarded of what I was going to say. I thought I had to write like a writer in my journal, instead of the simple girl without all the answers who simply writes.
Between grammar and trying to come across as collected, I went from spending 10 minutes per entry to over an hour or two. And the thing is, I was less satisfied with the more effort I put into it.
With an article, grammar and intention is extremely important, and spending time working on those and rewriting and rewriting and rewriting is something that is just part of the game. But for my journal entries here, I think that’s a very bad approach.
I have to just let it come out here. It has to be simple because that’s the only way I can really convey what’s going on with me and my writing. The journey is what’s important – not the punctuation.
Sept. 25, 2001
My first published article finally came out in the September/October edition of Nervy Girl Magazine. I was so excited and proud that all I wanted to do was run out and buy fifty copies.
The only problem was, I couldn’t. I couldn’t find any local places that sold this magazine.
You see it’s a small magazine and it doesn’t sit on every shelf in every store. Up until a short while ago, I hadn’t even heard of it. I just happened one day to come across their open call for writers on a website somewhere and I offered them something I had written. It didn’t bother me that they were a small magazine because I believed that I had to start somewhere at sometime and that’s just what I did.
Shortly after I submitted my articles to them I received an email from them saying that they wanted to publish me. I was thrilled and slowly started to mention to people that I was going to be published. However, since it’s not a household name magazine people would always say to me, “Nervy What? Is that a real magazine?”
Because so many people hadn’t heard of it, most assumed that it was a trivial silly little magazine without any importance or basis of being real at all. Some people thought that being published in it didn’t mean anything. They thought anyone and their mother could have done it – what was so special about me? If I were, in fact, a writer I’d be telling them my article was published in The New Yorker and not Nervy Girl Magazine.
At one point I stopped telling people the name of the magazine because I had begun to feel as though I had aimed low or never really accomplished anything. I had forgotten that I was just starting out and I had so much to learn, that I should have been thankful that someone recognised some kind of talent and meaning I had and wanted to share it with others.
However I realised why some people felt that being published in a small magazine wasn’t enough. It was because they had equated living your dream with living large and being successful by way of fame and fortune. It’s hard for some people to comprehend that those aren’t the motivations for everyone, and not everyone’s dream is to have lights flashing above them saying “star.” Some people just want to do what they want to do, simply because that is their passion. Whether it be a painter, teacher, parent, golfer, actor, singer, or in my case, writer.
That realisation made me go back to what my motivations for writing were. They were not for fame, money, bragging rights or the adoration of fans but rather to empower others, give an insight or two or to just simply express my thoughts in the only real way I know how. Above all, my motivation was to be true to my heart and simply do what I needed to do – write.
Remembering my true motivations reminded me that I had done what I had set out to do and on top of it, I was published. That led me to feel very proud of what I had so far, in so little time. I had started somewhere, and even if it wasn’t the biggest place in the world, it was someplace.
Sept. 24, 2001
The day of September 11th I lost all words. I had no coherent thoughts or ideas. There was no creativity or passion inside me that day. I was left, as most people, in complete shock. I went to bed that night not knowing what to think about that day or the future.
The days that followed my mind started to slowly grasp what had happened. The more aware I became of what was going on and how I felt, the less I understood where my writing belonged.
I thought perhaps now my writing was inappropriate. A few weeks earlier I had submitted an article to be published on the topic of Bravery and I wrote about how scary it can be to give up what you know and live how you really want to. I was really proud of it when I submitted it and even prouder when it was accepted for publication.
However, after September 11th that article seemed silly and naïve. I thought how daft it was for me to write that bravery was about following your dream since the real bravery was those who put their lives at risk for others each day. So I stopped writing.
A part of me wanted to keep writing because I believed that if Tuesday’s attack had reinforced any belief I had it was us that each moment is so precious and that we should not waste any time that we’re given. I kept asking myself how many of the people who never came out of work that day at least went in happy and did what they loved? I asked myself if that had been my last day would I have died living as consciously, happy and as real as I could have been? My answer would have been yes and I wanted it to be yes for others. Realising that gave me the courage to continue writing and to encourage others to live in the moment they way they want. Because as seen on September 11th, you only get one chance at this life and you’ll never know when it’ll stop.
However, when I tried to just get back to writing, I had major problems.
The attack had left me with so many mixed emotions and varied opinions that I didn’t know where to begin. I had married fact with my experiences and I didn’t know how to make sense of it all. I felt as though I should be able to put every thought I had into my brain and make some beautiful, coherent article to express it all. “I’m a writer,” I thought, “this is what I do. I write about real life. What could be more real than this?”
Yet each attempt I made seemed so inadequate, too contrived or just down right stupid. I began to feel frustrated and less and less like a writer. I felt I had over-analyzed and overworked my brain and my writing and I was getting nowhere fast.
So I took a break.
I went on a fall retreat where there was no television or newspapers. There were no deadlines, no pressures, no writing tools or word documents. There was nothing but the calm, quiet presence of nature and myself. One day I hiked up to the top of a mountain and looked around. I saw these beautiful peaks that were there long before I got here and would remain long after I’d left. I realised how little time we actually spend on earth and how few of us ever make any kind of lasting impact. I realised that perhaps through my writing, I could create something that would last. I could create some kind of beauty.
Through writing, I can do that. I can’t fix yesterday or create the perfect tomorrow. All I can do is live today and do what I know how to do.
And that’s continuing on with writing.