Tag: stories

Blinders Off

Stock taking begins.

I am not the great writer I hoped, and secretly believed, that I am.

It turns out that years of personal upheaval, creative subterfuge, dismissal and avoidance did take their toll.

I had plenty of “deep thoughts” about a lot of things to share when I was young. The childish arrogance is sweet, but laughable. But it came to a point I didn’t dare express them anyway.

I didn’t have the tools or necessary distance to start dissecting and unpacking the multi and various lapses of my childhood until I was well into adulthood.

I think a great writer – and I’m thinking of the great novelists here – can invite and bring you into their world. Any world they devise. Seemingly effortlessly. You are led around by the author as a steady companion might be.

They tell you their stories which tells you something about who they are. You overhear something from one particular conversation that stays with you. You meet people. And people got stories.

When I think of the great protagonists in novels I’ve enjoyed, I liked that the author helped me get to know their character’s character. Warts and all. Right off the bat.

There is something particularly compelling about a character being vulnerable that can advance a story dramatically.

The 24/7 superhero character can become an uninteresting drag. So even the best of them usually have some trauma or tragedy that has shaped their path and who they are.

For a time, I entertained the delusional notion that I might present myself to the world as that broken but not beaten female superhero. The one who could help others make sense out of an unstable and abusive childhood. I would show them how they could do it.

I can be downright amusing. I have carried this conceit of my writing prowess for years to offset the real life gravity that pulled my biggest desires and goals wildly off course. There was always going to be a “some day.” Until one day, there isn’t.

I am going to work on acceptance of my own limitations and the inevitable deflation of ego that propelled this little adventure over the past year. I do dearly wish that the place of peace and healthy self-confidence I have now, I would have had when I needed them most.

But I read few stories that read that way or actually go that way. Challenge and growth seem to be the mandatory edicts laid down for human beings in order to move forward in life.

Will a book suddenly come rushing out of me one day with all the words and stories I have been holding back for decades? I’m doubtful. Over thirty years, I’ve actively pursued therapy to talk out my issues and by writing endless journals to explore every aspect and screwup of my life. To date.

The same urgency is no longer there. Words padded and protected me most when I needed them to. They have been my tools, my playmates, my confidantes, and my critics for as long as I can remember.

Maybe one day I’ll get honest enough to throw off my tidy 3 minute writing restriction (a broadcasting hangover). Or shuck the internalized discipline of a professional writing career and tell you unedited what I really think and feel. But I actually do that already. But there’s always more.

Like how much I have come to resent my dead mother and her chronic overwhelm. How sorry and sad I feel for our fractured and flailing family. How much rage I carry over the “preventable tragedies” I watched unfold around me. And within my own life.

So that’s where I am at for now. I had no intention when I started out to monetize this blog. Still don’t. I could try some of the WordPress “marketing” tricks to reach a wider audience. In truth, I don’t know how many of you found me in the first place. Tags, maybe?

At the moment I am treading water. I’m trying to decide whether to swim out to deeper waters in the hope of finding a luxurious desert island to hang out on. Or whether I will be heading dutifully – and sensibly – back to shore.

Guess we’ll see.

Why I Write

Prompts are used by writers to grease the creative skids when they’re having trouble thinking up what to write about. Frank Taub has restarted the 30-day blog writing challenge for July and starts each day with a new prompt for challenge participants. This is Day 3 of the challenge and here is the prompt Taub proposes: Tell your readers what got you started in your writing niche. 

My niche is personal growth and healing based on my life experiences overcoming an unstable and abuse-riddled childhood. Both of my parents were professionals and substance abusers. Dad drank. Mom preferred pills. As I came to learn later, addicts’ lives are primarily centered around their cravings. Externals like children and careers are often collateral damage.

I cannot pretend that there was a turning point in my path toward writing. It has always been more of a calling than a choice. My relationship with words started early. I loved stories and I was good with words. They were thought-provoking and fun, ideal enticements for a learning junkie like me. They took me away from where I was.

My mother recognized my predilection toward words. Before the addictions had taken her over, she spent time with me to teach me to read when I was about three years old. We would play word games, starting with the “at” family. I would create words with that suffix by following the alphabet.

Bat. Cat. Fat. Gat. Hat. And so on. Then she would move on to the “an” family. Same routine. Ban. Can. Dan. Fan. The words I came up with at the start reflected my limited vocabulary. That vocabulary expanded over time but I never forgot those early lessons.

Words gave my life order. When things were happening around me and to me that were confusing and scary, words and stories were a safe place I could escape to. In my little bedroom, there was a clothes closet with storage space above it. I learned to climb up to that place when I was a toddler. To hide and to read. I took my favorite pinky blanket and found an escape from the often odd behaviors of addicted parents.

It seems I liked climbing generally when I was a child. There is an 8 mm film somewhere that shows me at two years old on top of a double-seated, wooden swing. Even now, I can remember the feeling of freedom and joy I had. What I couldn’t fathom, in retrospect, was how I got up there. 

I do remember it being one of the few times I felt free in my childhood. I lived with the daily uncertainty of addicted parents. Dad might be drunk. Mom was likely high on pills. I will say one thing about having that kind of childhood: it bred independence. Maybe a little too much.

I have come to fully appreciate the human need for stories. I believe they may have saved my life. For as difficult and lonely as times in my childhood were, stories showed me there were other places I could be. I could be someone else, too. In my head at any rate and if only for a few moments at a time.

Storybooks were like rocks in a river or islands in a stream. Safe crossings. Dry ground. Oases. As I grew older, I began to see words used most carelessly and manipulatively. I became skeptical and derisive of words and how they are used.

There is a sentimental side of me that longs for a time when we could all trust that a person’s word was their bond. I love the ideals of honor and honesty but also the greater values of common human decency and mutual trust and respect. Sadly lacking everywhere today and they are values generally treated with scorn and cynicism.

Yet these are the very type of stories I want to write. Imagining a world where people treat each other with kindness and respect. I also understand that is not the way the world is and may even go against human nature. People’s need to survive will always trump civility.

Until and unless we get to a place of greater egalitarianism around the world, the best a writer can hope to reflect is how individuals cope in an unjust world. And that they do so and still hang on to their values and common human decency is the secret human factor.

There is no magic solution for curing life’s evils. But there is much to be learned about the power of individuals to affect change. Stories of triumph in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds inspire and motivate us. It is the belief and examples set that working toward a common goal will incrementally create change for the better. 

Anthropologist Margaret Mead reminded us: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” https://www.azquotes.com/quote/196005?ref=one-person-can-make-a-difference

David and Goliath stories give us hope without which humans would be utterly lost. Thank god there are enough of them to give all of us hope and keep us moving forward.