Me, Myself, and the Writing Thing

I've been doing some thinking on the writing front.

It seems as though there has never been a time when I didn't write something, anything. My mother still has notebooks from when I was three years old, filled with page upon page of frantic, slanted scribbles across the page, unintelligible yet compelling: clearly, I was trying to communicate something, although I could never say what that might have been. I began writing actual stories, in tipsy upper-case capitals, in the first grade. In the third grade, I wrote a book; a fully illustrated, 100 page story about creatures from another planet called fuzzy wuzzies. ( I wrote a second book in third grade so closely modeled on Bambi that it makes me cringe whenever I think about it.)

I've been writing ever since then - stories, plays, songs, poems, articles, essays, and of course, this blog. It seems as though there were never a time when there weren't characters in my head or a storyline making the rounds of my subconscious. A novel about a grey fur seal in seventh grade. A book about a zebra at pony penning in Chesapeake in eighth grade. A rollicker of a fantasy novel in high school. On and on, pages and pages of gibberish, ideas, snippets, roughdrafts.

To date, I have published several poems and newspaper articles, as well as a few essays and editorials. But what about all of the other stuff? What is the point of all of my writing? I'm not entirely certain there is a point, to be frank. I think some of us on this planet, we just need to write. It's an addiction, akin to crack-cocaine or heroin, for my money. Papers to grade? Well, there's this story I've been working on in my head...Driving a car? Oh, wait, I need paper and a pen, that was a good bit of dialogue I just composed...Sleep? Overrated in the face of a possible chapter opener. And on and on, this inexplicable, inexorable need to set pen to paper and write, write, write. Writing wreaks havoc on my schedule, on my personal life, at my job, in public - I admit it, I'm a junkie.

Sometimes, it seems as though I am still three years old, scribbling meaningless lines across paper in a blind effort to communicate. At 32, I'm still not sure what, exactly, I'm trying to say. But I need to say it, nonetheless, almost daily, on any writing surface and with any implement I can obtain. (Although I'm particularly partial to yellow legal pads and those lovely Focus gel pens.) I rejoice when something goes well, when a poem sounds like a poem, or a turn of phrase sounds fresh and original; I become surly and downright rude when I am interrupted in the midst of a writing jag (ask my husband for verification on this, the poor man never saw it coming when he married me "for better or worse", and I freely admit to being glad we wrote our own vows, so that I am not constantly breaking the one about "foresaking all others". Writing is the third party in our relationship. Then again, the computer is the fourth party, on his side, so I figure he's equally glad not to have said those particular words...!)

My number-one complaint on any given occasion is that I don't have enough time to write. Of course, this is partially my own fault - I also love theatre, and plays are a big commitment, especially the musicals I love to act in. But then again, I find myself writing more and better during the run of a play than at other times. I think it's to do with the artistic expression and tapping into my inner self; all of the energy and inspiration that comes out of the creation process on stage seems to pour itself back into my head and, subsequently, onto paper. But although the early ideas and drafts are often good at this point, I never seem to have the time to go back and rewrite, revise, and polish. Which is probably why I have yet to publish a book-length work in any form. Well, that and the fact that I don't have an agent; I've tried in the past, but it
seems as though you have to know somebody or have a trust fund in order to find representation in
the literary world. It's no longer the place for struggling unknowns laden with innate ability,
talent, and drive. Or addicts like me, who are bound to come up with something worthwhile if we just keep scribbling away long enough.

Then again, I always have trouble identifying myself as a writer. It's so confining, the act of labeling oneself; once you choose a title, society is loathe to let you exchange it; in this instance, it feels much like the retail industry: no exchanges or refunds. I am so many things, all of which feed into my work as a writer - wife, mother, teacher, actor, singer, dog owner, cat owner, artist, reader, dancer, student - that to refuse any of these titles would severely hamper my ability to write anything of any determinable interest. If it weren't for the life I live, the business of who I am, there would be nothing to say. So, while I would like to be a writer in polite company, to introduce myself as such with a cute little napkin under my cocktail as I mingle with pseudo-intellectuals who gaze admiringly upon me as I make the proclomation, I hesitate a second too late and keep silent.

Writing is personal; in my case, I imagine it is destined to stay that way. I've graduated from slanted scribbling across paper to bizarre, poetic formations of actual words, reams of pages filled top-to-bottom with carefully edited, word-processed words, bits and scraps of paper filled with words, real words on pretty much every flat surface I can get my hands on. But I'm still not certain what all of those words mean, and I don't know that I will ever know. Perhaps they mean nothing until someone else has read them and made them meaningful through his or her own interpretation. All I know at present is that I have written, continue to write, will write. My creation may mean nothing at all, or it may be profound, or it may be of limited brilliance, but I can no sooner stop creating than I can stop drinking coffee or eating chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream. I'm kind of glad about that, actually, glad that there aren't any medications or therapies or twelve-step programs for the writer to overcome his or her addiction. Life without a pen in hand would seem sort of bland, all in all.