Let's Get Creative Together!
I've been a writer for 30 years. Against all odds, people actually pay me for it. Still, whenever anybody asked me if I was working on a novel, I'd laugh and say no. Just the facts, ma'am, just the facts.
I truly believed I didn't have what it takes to spin a good yarn. When my daughter was little, bedtime stories came in books; I wasn't one of those Sheherazade moms. Then 2009 happened. My work as a freelance writer and editor slowed down, and desperate to have something to show beyond a peaked collection of magazine-article pay stubs at year's end, I decided to try fiction. And glory be, it's happening.
I'm betting there are a lot of you out there like me this year, with a burning desire to write and a little more time on your hands. If so, join me on this journey. It's fantastic fun – well, most of the time – and I bet if we write together, harmonic convergence will give us all a leg up. I'll be blogging once a week on my progress, and I hope you'll share the stage and talk about your own writing. For me, some days, the dialogue just flows; other days, my characters don't have a damn thing to say. Some days, I think I'm embarking on a wonderful, new recession-proof career; other days, I look at what I've written and say “Jodie Picoult would laugh her ass off at this.” On the worst days, I console myself that at least I'm stretching my brain, warding off Alzheimer's.
How much fun it would be to take this journey together. If there's anything I've learned about midlife, it's a time when women blossom and find their voice. Even the MacArthur Foundation says so. Experience has given us something to say; self-confidence has given us the guts to say it.
