A Writer’s Life?
By Assunta Maria Vickers, Inland Empire Branch
It has occurred to me that I don’t have a “writer’s life.” I have a very full life, rich with experiences, activities and interests galore. And I do occasionally “write.” However, I do not think I have much to say about a writer’s life because I have no self-discipline related to the craft. Contrary to the many professional writers’ accounts of their successful methods, I have no plan, no magic, no secret pathway. In fact, I hardly write at all.
But, once in a while, something simply bubbles up from deep inside, and it grows inside of me, kind of like yeast inside of fresh dough. It develops, eventually rising up so high that I must sit down and let it out, warm, from my heart through my brain and down my arms to a keyboard, to become evidence – almost aromatic – of the joys or the pains remembered. To me it often feels like the birthed loaf of an epiphany. Right there in front of me like fresh bread from an oven.
See, I’m not actually a writer. I’m an emoter. Sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever get a published book out to the world, because I don’t have that recipe. I certainly do not have the incredible talent it takes for fiction…to make things up!? I could not! The things that erupt out of my insides onto paper really happened. When they surface to a point where I can articulate them, I let them pour out and somehow feel lighter. Relieved.
So, I write to get it out. I have an epic series inside of me. In spurts some stories have freely flowed into file folders filling space that I’m running out of. Some are still simply stuck, locked deep inside without words yet formed to express them. Sometimes it seems it would be of no interest to others. But it is not the chronologic events that rise demanding to come out. It is the MOMENTS that have shaped me, magnified by the good and bad EMOTIONS of some of those unforgettable moments. It is the emotion that I need to express. That drives me to write.
I have had more than my share of profoundly affecting, soul-wrenching experiences, and at times hard-to-believe stuff. Sometimes, when I finally sit a few moments to write it down, I’m amazed; on paper somehow that thing that happened when I was eleven or that thing that I was not able to verbalize when I was in second grade, is validated. I regain some of my power and my own voice by taking control of those situations, when putting them into words, moving them outside of myself, where they no longer control me; I am now in control. That alone is a success to me. And if, by reading it, somebody else feels empowered to find their own voice or sense of control over their own person, that becomes my personal Nobel Prize.
We who write are complicated multi-faceted souls. We have weaknesses and strengths, handicaps and skills, that swirl together with our yet unwritten or unpublished stories. The ingredient needed to overcome barriers to becoming the successful writer I would aspire to, continues to elude me. I haven’t yet found that recipe, or when I think I have, I can’t seem to follow it. The room where I write is quite messy, and my methods are unconventional. Yet, I remain in pursuit of honoring my story, getting it out of my ‘oven.’ I seize those moments that present themselves clamoring “write it down!” and put out those little aromatic loaves of epiphany, perhaps crusty on the outside, but warm and chewy on the inside. Can’t you smell it?