fellow writers

Sun 10.24.21

      I have been offered, and have accepted, a contract with the international Austin Macauley Publishing Company.  This week an email in my inbox with the soothing balm that tells me what a wonderful book I have written!  The book is “The Tenant’s Tale.”  I sent the memoir to them in May of this year. What do I think of this offer?  I’m going to go out there with my backpack, a sturdy pair of boots, and I’m going to give it my best shot.

I became a writer because someone told me that I was a good writer.  It had never entered my mind.  A prof in a night class at the U, I forget the course subject, commented to the class on my obviously strong writer’s voice on the paper I handed in.  Really?  I didn’t know that!  And another at a later date saw me as a writer.  A couple of years later, with the time and money to do so, I signed up for a poetry course and the Stonecoast Writers’ Conference on a lark.  I knew nothing about poetry, except for the few poets whose work I enjoyed.  The poet Ken Rosen stood at the chalkboard, chalk in hand, holding forth on one of Shakespeare’s love poems, when I understood that poems worked on symbols, like dreams.  I had been in therapy with a Jungian psychologist and had paid close attention to my dreams for years.  What a revelation!  It was at that moment that I accepted myself as a writer.  It was my vocation.  I had found my way in the world, and my seat at the table.

The next boost came from my vision quest.  On the last few days I had a couple of powerful visions.  Later I came to realize that writing comes from the same place as visions, and it is not part of what we call “the real world.”  One visits the writer’s world by quieting the mind.  Not an easy task, from morning’s first eye opening to its closing at night the mind spins, spins, spins.  But writing is wonderful.  No one need tell you when you’ve created a good piece of work – you know it, and it cannot be taken from you.  You have told your truth, exposed your vision. 

The favorite post this month has been the podcast, Luhrenloup’s Path