Making It Up As I Go Along #230

THURSDAY…
--- Busy day at work and writing in the evening. Not much else going on today really.

FRIDAY…
--- Long day. We were supposed to work until 11:30 and then go to a CNI luncheon… that was it for the day. Ten minutes before the luncheon, a work issue keeps me behind. I don’t end my work day until around 3:30… skipping lunch and a break entirely. On the bright side, it’ll mean I’ll work less time tomorrow… a half day will make up for my extra work today.
--- Some laundry, a post work nap, and getting my pictures uploaded to the computer end my day.

SATURDAY…
--- Thanks to extended working yesterday, my full day Saturday in the office is reduced to pretty much a half day. Still lots of catching up left to get done but I put a dent in it.
--- Baseball and Dick’s Diner with Shannon. Good game too with a no-hitter for 5 1/3 innings by the visiting pitcher and the winning run scored in the bottom of the 9th inning for a 3-2 Ottawa victory.


Why Write
Why write? Mom suggested writing about writing while I was on my vacation. I don’t know if that’s where this is going… I’m just winging it on a Saturday night because, with my cousin coming to visit tomorrow, I won’t have any other time to do this until the middle of next week.

I grew up around literature. Mom and dad have always read and dad tells a story like few others. But I was never as big a reader as my parents. Dad had to make a point of stopping me from always wanting to buy comic books. He felt they did no good for me although I could never understand how it would be a problem. There were words on the page. I was reading. But the illustrations negated the words and, by my mid teens, comic books were basically band.

So writing never played a very big role in my life early on. My creative side was nurtured with music and art lessons. But music never really held my attention. I practiced as little as possible and, by high school, decided to get out of the music business altogether. I’m just too private a person to want to perform for people and ten minutes of practice every night wasn’t making me a pro by any means.

Art worked with my private side. But still, after a while, it seems the well ran dry. I rarely got inspired to paint anything and, after a while, the paint set just never came out.

There was enough other stuff going on during my university days, so my creative side took a hiatus. An English minor developed some extra reading and writing for me, but I never really got in to it with any real passion. Too often I felt like I had to write a certain way for an assignment. I didn’t feel free to do what I wanted.

Out of university and into the work force and my creative writing remained dormant. I did have to write. I wrote historical documents for parks and parcels of land around St. John’s. It all played in to my background with cultural and historical geography. But even then, when the work day was done I had no desire to write anything.

No, it was a mindless job and an adventurous cousin that brought out my writing desire. I was working with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. And although it was a fine paying job, my mind was quite capable of wandering away from the task at hand. Separating and counting fish eggs or removing fish ear drums from fifteen year old, brittle putty was hardly fascinating for me. So I’d think about things while I worked. I’d daydream about the odd characters of my neighbourhood… making up stories for the parts of their lives I never saw. And I’d think about things I’d hear on the news or talked with other people about earlier. So much thinking would allow ideas to grow… a few notes would make their way into my pocket and I’d work with them later on when I went home.

What got me to decide to write on a weekly basis was an around the world trip by my cousin Kerri. Her e-mails back to family would make you laugh out loud and, somewhere between the fish’s ears and eggs, I came to think that I could write a personal tale similar to what Kerri had done. I decided I should make this a weekly practice largely because I figured anything less would have me get out of the habit. I figured writing could very easily go the way of music… so once a week it would be.

But for me to really become interested in writing I had to become a bum. That is to say, I became unemployed. I went one full year without work and this gave me the flexibility to write whenever I wanted. And with a downtown house equipped with a magnificent loft, I soon developed the habit of late night writing. I’d often start in at 2:00 AM either with music in the background or a distant foghorn on those misty nights. Often, a trip hiking around Cape Spear or a late night downtown walk would send me home with a mind buzzing… barely able to wait to make it to my loft.

Today I’m back to work and out of my loft. I’m also about four years in to my weekly ritual. It’s harder to get inspired to write now. Ottawa doesn’t grip me the way St. John’s does and work has left me unable to write all hours of the night. And, over the last six or seven months, extra responsibilities at work has hampered the developing of writing ideas throughout the day (although I still do make my way home with a little note in my pocket… there to remind me of a topic to work on).

And now it’s in me I guess. For me, writing is all about interpreting and remembering moments. To take an image in my mind and describe it so others can see it.

Funny thing, after writing that last sentence, I was reminded of some moments of imagery from my trip home. Notes were made and next week’s story is already taking form.

That’s why I write.