…That writing keeps me alive?
Breathing too.
It is really quite amazing how I have consistently maintained a relationship with the written word for so many years. I can’t honestly remember where the pen (pencil or crayon) first hit the paper… but throughout the years the practice and process have been a part of my daily life without fail.
I am a writer.
Outside of the short stories, screenplays or even the book I have written throughout the years… I have fluctuated between the need to prescribe self-therapy and delve into the clever and creative. The most important tool being the practice, daily, to keep the mind active with words, sentences, solutions, stories and my character. As a younger man I had always considered and expected that I would make a living with the written word in my adult life. In some ways I do, although, admittedly, not as I would have thought. Knowing life as I have experienced it does continue to suggest that the expectation could still be met… as with a book there are many chapters left to be written and experienced in my life.
When I was younger I kept a journal in date books. In this stage of the writing I felt I should be “logging” what I was doing, where, with whom and all the little bits of information that I figured would one day be valuable. Oddly enough this was a chapter in my life that was a bit less coherent. I would write many things in a code that indicated that I was not as comfortable with the possibility that people would find the writing and figure me out. The result in many of the date books is a great deal of abbreviations and hints about people and things that I honestly don’t have a clue about in current days. What I do understand is a treasure to remember. I am always very pleased to have this record of the days gone by.
Pivotal to my character, my development and my desire to continue as a writer in this life was the commitment I made to myself on the day I finally surrendered myself to sobriety on May 23, 1991. There was a part of me coherent enough to tie the writing of a journal entry into a notebook on a daily basis to the sobriety commitment. What followed was the most magnificent, unedited love and hate relationship and therapy that I will ever experience.
And it has continued ever single day for 18.3 (6671 days and entries) and 93 notebooks. No matter what I write the journal will always be my backbone and study hall in the world of writing. It is without a doubt the reason that I have had any success with my life since sobriety. I have talked my way into and out of every situtation. I have struggled and celebrated. I have written and written and then written some more about how I felt and why. The journal is a friend, a confidant, a therapist, a sounding board, a tool for learning, a notepad for ideas… and the place where I have learned that no matter what is happening… it will pass.
I have come to a place that I am convinced it is time to write my first “novel.” Although I have written a book I am now ready to create the story. I want to flesh out my characters and build a world in which they live and the story that they are telling. Mine is creative soul. It is very possible that I have been stifling that creativity in my professional life and I am ready to make that change and remedy that factor.
Stay tuned. And as always…
Be Happy. Be Well. Be.