A letter to my web designer (and friend), Joe, about writing...

January 11, 2018
Dear Joe,

I want to thank you again for setting up this  website for me.  It forced me to do something I thought I’d never be  able to do:  cultivate audience for my writing.  This goes along with  the post I have called “Here and Now” where I talk about putting things  off—saving the best for last…what it really is, is an admittance of  fear.  Fear that I might actually get what I want.  Fear that hard work  really can take you to the next level—even if that level is only a  privacy, a time, a state of mind.

I don’t have a whole lot of  time to allot to writing.  I have to work strategically to earn it—a  moment here—there…stolen.  Traded.  It is an indulgence.  And when I  admitted to you in September that I wouldn’t get to post in a blog until  winter break I wasn’t being snarky or facetious…I was being, well,  fearful and honest.  Or, fearfully honest.

This weekend, I read Negotiating with the Dead,  a book about writing by Margaret Atwood (Thank YOU Kent for the  recommendation, and Liz for the gift!).  In it, she admits it is common  among writers to offer up the same struggle—will a writer get an  audience?  Will it matter?  Does one call themselves a “writer”?  And if so, when?  Is that pretentious?  Egotistical?  A lie?  She asserts one has to  merely put pen to paper—set out words as containers for thought and one  can call themselves a writer—skill level, audience, eschewed…one who  writes is a writer. So there it is.

With a place to put the  writings (you), with a name by which to be called (her), and the impetus  to issue it all forth (me) I feel consecrated.  Free to create.   Regardless of reception.  This is about building myself in the next  iteration.  My "part C". A: childhood is over.  B: adulting is well  underway.  C?  The part that comes next.  I see this as a transitionary  time where my duties as wife, mother, and teacher are morphing to the  next season.

I have been written about in a published work. I  have written for a published work.  And through those minor, isolated  incidences, somehow a veil has been removed.  I had a typo on a recent  handout in class, and when I chastised myself while telling the kids to  repair it, one spoke up and reminded me, “You write so much for us, what  is one typo?”  I later thought about all the letters, poems, speeches,  presentations, worksheets, introductions, meetings, plans, created  events...and especially the two recent weddings I performed… and  realized I have been writing for years.  And my mind was  suddenly quiet.  The audience merely needs to shift.  The content can  grow.  Because in the end, it isn’t ultimately about the audience’s  reception—it is about me “putting pen to paper”.  Using the space to  think and create.

In addition, I have a feeling this could be a  fingernail’s grasp of what may come.  Oddly, Ed and I recently watched  the end of the Mad Men series where a few characters leave  their place at the ad agency to pursue their next step…their plan C; and  although it was only a TV show, I understand how things can really seem  to fall into place.  But when you make an effort for it to  happen, results are most surely guaranteed.  Mrs. V and I talked about  me moving to the new high school and she reinforced the thought that  transferring would divert time spent doing something for me—for the  community.  I just don’t know what that is, but I have an ear tuned to  the future and am listening for whatever clues are out there… Meanwhile,  I am also making sure to take the small steps I can to make things  happen…eventually.

Thanks again, for being a part of that—
Repko