The written word is the one thing that I can turn to when pain, sex and vodka have failed me. In high school, I wrote a lot of poetry. Some of it is trash, sure, but some of it is truly stirring. Sometimes when verbal communication fails me, I turn to the written word. My mother would sometimes see me struggling for the right words during a conversation and tell me to write her a letter, instead. Funny how mom's tend to know us better than we know ourselves. Today, I often open serious discussions, or communicate a frustration through an email before talking over the finer points in person or over the phone. I do this with friends and family alike.
I was interviewed for a blog about long term pain and debilitating diseases. It gave me the push I needed to finally start my own blog. I now write one under my given name on my struggle with pain and my mystery disease, and a second under my professional pseudonym that is a platform for my fledgling business as a Coach/Companion to the geek culture and other minorities.
A dear friend started a blog when he and his wife parted ways, and I immediately started editing that for him, as I understand how he thinks and can figure out what he is trying to say with a post, even when he cannot.
One of my best friends in Hamilton actually writes THREE blogs, and I edit hers for much the same reasons. She is a writer by trade, having recently branched into the world of freelance writing. One of her blogs is just fun stuff about her life and the many creatures she shares it with, one is all about literary women and their books, and the last is more I guess her own writing and thoughts. I've been blessed to edit a piece of fiction that she is working on that gives me goosebumps when it's polished.
I did editing of essays and what not in high school for extra cash. The editing that I do now, I do for the joy and the experience. There is a great sense of pleasure that comes from being able to help someone craft their thoughts and ideas into the written word. Tedious is not a word that I would associate with the experience. In fact, tedious is a word I reserve for all things Mathematical in nature :P And hell, if either of them ever gets published, that's an amazing thing to have on my resume ;)
A friend of a friend recently read my blog for the first time. She had many complimentary things to say about it, but the comment that stuck with me, and truly touched me was 'She writes like she does it for a living.' Thank you, E. That simple phrase means more to me than you can possibly imagine.
I like to tell people that I am a writer by trade. However, I have no formal education in English outside of my regular studies in school. My parents did encourage me to read and write at every given opportunity. In fact, I was reading long before I started school. I was that crazy kid in the third grade who was perusing the Novels section in the school library looking for Jack London's, White Fang, while everyone else was looking for picture books.
I was a hyperactive child, and rather than medicate me, my Dad made up reading, writing and arithmetic assignments for me to do. We had a leather bound collection of Funk & Wagnals encyclopedias that I became very familiar with, and one of those massive dictionaries with the little thumbnail indents for each letter. It was old and fragile, but I loved to reverently turn through it's pages in search of the definition of a whatever new words I had stumbled across in my studies, or that Dad had listed as part of my Definitions Hunt.
Two of the books that I remember reading for assignments were Kon Tiki, and a biography of Abe Lincoln. I remember struggling with Kon Tiki because it was written in the form of a journal, and was therefore often boring. The story of Abe Lincoln, however, was fascinating. Both, however, are beloved pieces of my childhood. In fact, my parents gifted me with a copy of Kon Tiki when I moved away from home. I think it was mom that read me The Call of the Wild, by Jack London, over the summer between grades 2 and 3. I loved it! It was her that sent me to check the school library for White Fang, by the same author, to read on my own.
I am a lot like Picard and Kirk in that I like the feel of a book in my hand. My Android has an E-Reader on it, but I'm really not interested in that. I want to feel the heft of the book, smell the scent of the pages. I actually pouted when I realized that I was going to have to start purchasing paperbacks instead of hardbound, because of my health. The strength and dexterity in my hands is so unpredictable that trying to hold a hardbound book, even in two hands, is often quite difficult. For my birthday last year, one of my best friends got me a gift card for a book store, knowing that I wanted to add to my collection. I bought the second book in one of my favourite series, and in paperback. The first one is hardbound. Makes for an odd pattern on the bookshelf, I'll tell you.
Alright, I'll stop pouting now.
I've actually taken to listening to audio books as I walk or on the bus, or before bed, or while I'm doing housework. Drives my housemates nuts because they'll come into a room jabbering at me and I don't even know that they're there. If you get the right reader, it makes it worth not having the book in your hands. I'm just finishing up the third book in Nora Robert's 'In the Garden' series. The reader is pretty fabulous. I'm hoping that my next audio book adventure is my favourite book of all time- The Redemption of Althalus by David and Leigh Eddings. I hope that it's read at least half as good as it sounded in my head.
Before life got quite as hectic as it is, I also used to write long, handwritten letters to my friends and family. It's been probably close to six years since I've done that on a regular basis. Though I do from time to time, write to a friend or family member, hoping that it brings as much joy to them to receive the letter as I felt while writing it.
There is something about the written word...
It does not frustrate me that I rarely finish a story. It does not bother me that the only thing that I've ever published and sold was Self Published and only took me half an hour to write. What does bother me is that I don't write every day. That I no longer eat, live and breathe the written word. When I move, I always have one box just full of half filled notebooks, stationary. pencils, and pens. I used to have to restock every couple of months. Right now I'm staring at a jar full of pens that rarely see use anymore, and a stack of paper and notebooks that I've had for going on two years.
It's not writer's block. It's just a fast. And it's getting frustrating. I'm getting frustrated. Hell! It feels an awful lot like sexual frustration! But I guess that ties into my opening statement, and my title. Writing has always been a sensual experience for me, and I have been craving that sensation in the same way I crave sensations of the flesh. It's time to get serious about the Written Word, again. Let's see what sort of havoc I can wreak on that stack of notebooks.
*rubs hands together in anticipation*
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