I've been writing for many years now. In some way or other, I earn my living flipping words. More noble than I have cringed at the implications when I ask, "Would you like a verb with that?" Dreams come in many guises. It wasn't very long past the juncture when I had moved into the realm of, yes this is how I earn my living, I am a writer, a word smyth actually, I edit as well, and I even publish a website. If it has to do with the written word, that is my gig. The juncture was when I learned about strings, every young writer and journalist soon learns that lesson. Just as surely as I had reached for that goal, when I got it, it wasn't enough. It wasn't honestly what I wanted. What I really wanted was to be able to write what I wanted. This is assuming I have something to say, and those who know me, know that I generally do. Bills do have to be paid though, and somehow or other, we all have a boss. Over the years, the strings got longer, and it seems to me, they were not only longer, they were tighter, and they surely multiplied.
I have learned much. And I am well aware, in our world today, youth is cherished, as if you are somehow supposed to be ashamed or your age. I am not. I am a woman of a certain age, and with age comes wisdom, or at least a certain level of experience. What good is wisdom or experience if you take it with you? Not a whole lot – and I do have a few things to say.
At times, over the course of my career, I have perhaps been somewhat critical of the media, the constraints that bind journalists, what is covered, and what isn't. What is the news? What is the real story behind the story? Why do we get this story and not that one over there? Everywhere you turn; there is something about those strings. They are everywhere.
Oh, the things I have learned. Even if you tell the story that you know deep in your soul is the story that must be told, how do you know you got it right? Who told you that? Whose side was it? What is truth? Whose truth is it? It didn't take me very long to realize, we all have a boss and bills have to be paid. Did I say that before? How many times have I written, feeling the strings tight around me even as I sought for the breath to bring voice to my words, and truth, as least the truth as I knew it to be? And so my dream morphed once more, until it was a burn in my soul that one day, when I wrote, the words would be my own, the stories that I felt deep in my soul needed telling.
I am indeed a woman of a certain age. I have truly learned much. After much thought, much consideration, why do I write for this reason, or that publication? On whose time is what word? We only have so many days on this earth, and there are no guarantees. Liberation comes in many forms. For many years, I dreamed of the day that when I wrote, the words really would be my own. My own, my way. They are now. And thus, I blog…
