My passion for writing inspires me, enthralls me, enlightens me, and eases my burden, but when I go to put words on paper about my passion, I find myself blocked and I can’t explain what it is about putting pen to ink that so inspires me. Writing defines the essence of who I am and it is through my writing that the real me finds her voice. Tom Hanks had a line in the awe inspiring movie Philadelphia where he said, “I love the law.” Writing is just that basic for me: “I love the language.” I love the way words feel when they dance off my fingers and onto the keyboard. I love finding just the right word to express what I’m feeling. I love it when my words right an injustice, touch someone’s heart, or just make someone stop and ponder another point of view.
Writing lets me think on paper and playing with words helps me clarify my thoughts. I write technical documents, emails, and manuals at work and some people would find that tedious and dull, but I even enjoy playing with words and finding just the right word to describe an SAP transaction. Some people would say that is a sickness, but I view it as a love affair with the English language.
Screenplays, novels, letters to the editor, self help books, journals, blogs, and essays. I’ve written them all and they’ve all changed my world in some way. Screenplays I write with the hopes of being sold, but despite never selling one of the three I’ve written, I still love writing them because they let me bring an entire universe to life in 120 pages. You notice I say bring a universe to life and not create a universe. That’s because sometimes when I get into the flow of writing, it feels like I’m just describing events that I’m seeing on a screen in my head. The characters end up having lives of their own. The interesting thing about my scripts is that I’ve learned something about myself from every character I’ve written. From Jennifer I’ve learned to tap my inner strength; from Mo I learned that I’m capable of more than I give myself credit for; and from Clare, my newest heroine, I’m learning that I’m capable of forgiveness and letting things go.
I wrote my one and only novel to help me dig through some deep seated fears and resentments. What I found was that novels weren’t my cup of tea; there were too many pages to fill up, and too many words to write. I didn’t like having to write transitions and having to come up with a zillion ways to say “said.” I don’t have that issue with screenplays as I just put a name and what they’re saying and that’s that.
Letters to the editor are calls to action; they are my way of telling the world about injustice and tyranny. They always say the pen is mightier than the sword and when I pick up a pen, I feel Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson standing over my shoulder extolling the virtues of striking a blow against tyranny through the written word. Not that I think showing inappropriate TV shows or rude people at high school graduations are as important as Revolution, but I feel a sense of patriotism when I exercise my right to question the world around me.
The Portable Coach was written at a time when I needed to reinvent myself. I’ve always figured out that I learn best by doing and explaining, and that’s what writing The Portable Coach allowed me to do. I was able to internalize the processes that I needed to go through to change my life by writing about them and explaining them so that other people could learn how to changes their lives.
Journals are my most personal of writings and I have a stack of them in my grandmother’s wardrobe that detail the journey I’ve taken from girl to woman. Some of them are excruciatingly boring and whiny as I detail all the petty injustices that filled my world at the time they were written and others show insights into myself that I’d forgotten. I never edit my journals and they are always about the free flow of words onto the page. In some ways, my journals serve as my very own therapist and at $2 bucks for a notebook, they’re a little cheaper than therapy.
Essays and blogs go together in my world as my blog really is a series of essays about things that matter to me. Blogs let me tell my story and the lessons I’ve learned from loving it. My blog helps me sort through my feelings and gain the kernels of truth that are inside each experience I have. I’ve learned since I’ve been blogging that when I keep my focus on finding bliss and balance in all experiences, I do. When I don’t focus on it, it is too easy to become unbalanced and focus on the negatives instead of the bliss that surrounds us every day, if only we go looking for it.
Unlike my journals, my blog is meant to be read and shared and it’s disheartening when days go by without any new clicks showing up. But then when I don’t check the stats for a few days, sometimes I’ll find that quite a few people read my blog and that is bliss indeed.
Cairn by Cairn 