Write On Wednesday: Writing it Down

"The most important function my writing serves is to help me make sense of life in general - and my own in particular."

Those words are as true for me today as they were 10 years ago when I wrote them in the “about” page on my first blog. Writing things down in almost any format - from a hastily scribbled list or a soul searching journal entry to  a carefully considered essay  -writing clarifies my thinking, opens a channel for new ideas, and relieves anxiety and tension. 

Because writing is often the midwife to new ways of thinking, or a working out of one’s feelings on the page, it’s most appreciated when one is in the midst of a particularly unsettling period of life.

So it begs the question: How does being happy with life in general play out in one’s writing? Does a writer need a pinch of angst as seasoning for the pot? Is being happy and content a deterrent to deeply expressive writing, the kind that connects emotionally with readers?

The Sunday Salon: The Book in My Desk

Think back for a moment to the kind of desk you had in elementary school - say second or third grade. Mine was square, with a grey metal tub-like bottom and a faux-wood laminate top that lifted up. I often used the top of my head to prop that lid open while I rummaged around inside the general clutter that collected there: folders and looseleaf notebooks and chewed up pencils and erasers and mimeographed work sheets. 

And books.

Life In General: Hitting the Big Time

Occasionally I’m hired to do “special projects” for the medical case management company I once worked for. Most recently, the bulk of this work has been in writing new policies and procedures, although I’ve also done some marketing writing (copy for the website, presentations to potential customers, etc.) It’s never more than 5-6 hours per week, and usually involves a meeting at the office once a month, maybe lunch, and then a couple of hours at home on the computer.

In other words, a darn near perfect work life for this almost 60-year old. 

The Sunday Salon: Taking Time

It feels oppressively hot this morning, a heat that seems incongruous in the face of crimson tipped leaves on the trees and fading blossoms on the impatiens. I’m not one who loves hot weather, and though I dread winter with every fiber of my being, I still prefer to be just chilly enough that I need to go to my closet for a soft sweater. 

But weather - like life -  is nothing if not surprising. 

Happily, life has not surprised me this week. Mine is blessedly quiet, which means I’ve had plenty of time to read. 

I don’t plan my reading ahead of time, although I have a shelf in my library of TBR books, I am easily digressed from that orderly line up. If something at the library takes my fancy, if I get a new recommendation online or from a friend, if I feel an old book calling my name off the shelf, I go wherever my fancy takes me. 

Somehow in the past week I’ve latched on to reading about poet and novelist May Sarton, first reading her novel Mrs. Stevens Hears the Mermaids Singing, and then a biography by Margot Peters that I picked up at a library book sale.