Writings from the past

On my “writing shelf” there is an assortment of notebooks and journals, which surface now and then and entice my writers’ eye to once again peruse the long forgotten, ignored, or awaiting rediscovery, and perhaps publication, of some of my literary works of yore.

As I struggle to surface from my self-imposed sabbatical, or writer’s sulk… it occurs to me that these scraps and bits of pencil-scribbled wisdom, born of a deep need for self- expression, may deserve to be brought to a venue where they may be read if anyone chooses to do so.

Word for Writers:
The worst thing you’ll ever write
is better than
the best thing you’ll never write.
(Sol Saks)

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This item was part of an exercise designed to find a point to start writing. In the center of a page write a word…this one I used was AFRAID. Then connect with arrows various thoughts pertaining to the key word, until a viable prompt starts your writing. (This was February 23, 1984)

Here’s my effort, using the word “Fear” as my prompt:

“The biggest fear I have is that I may run out of time to do what I must, which is simply, to write—that the day that marks the end of my life will come and I will say “no—not yet!” I’m afraid of sadness, of my own feelings of inadequacy…of the sadness of my children…the inability to do those things that I want to do, yet not to find the time—or inclination to do so. To be, to write, to fulfill my own destiny. I spend too much time worrying about the “children” who are not children at all, but worrying about them, yet most of all worrying about myself and the fear of not becoming what I must become.”

That’s it, what I wrote back then. 46 years ago! Good grief. Today those children are grown…so are their children, and THEIR children are teenagers. I still worry about them all, though they are no longer my personal responsibility. I still worry about my self-proclaimed goal as a “Writer.” Yes I have been a writer of sorts all through my life, at times even a professional newspaper writer. Now I’m a blogger…and I worry and fret about not writing.

Yep, the more we change the more we stay the same.

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{More from the Green Notebook:]

I had just acquired my first computer in 1983, and I was enamored of it to the point of writing this:

“What does a square, cold, metal blox with a few strange things called “chips.” offer to a middle-aged woman? The answer is … the future, the past, the beginning and the end.”

That ancient Kaypro II was really was all that to me. I supported my five kids for awhile single-handedly as a single mom, as a newspaper reporter. Earned supplemental income as a newspaper writer. Then worked my way through my college degrees … and even now I blog and write. Not the same computer all those years of course…I’ve never been without since that first machine arrived.

The rise of the machines has had real meaning to me all through the last four decades…and beyond. In fact one of my early blogging attempts is extant, entitled “Rise of the Machines” or something like that here on Sometimes. A search of “computers” should locate it.

This is fun, I think I’ll do some more meandering backwards through my notebooks and computer disks… I’m having some writers’ block issues after my almost four years of “not writing much.” I love being back at SOMETIMES, and getting reacquainted with many of the “old gang” of the bloggersphere…

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