Saturday, May 30, 2015

Why Do I Keep Writing?

  For some reason, after I advised the listener earlier this week of another rejection, I was asked, "Why do I keep writing?"

  Within all of us is a story, waiting to be told, about overcoming obstacles. Sometimes it's relationships, other times it's money. Not all stories are happy endings, and not all stories resolve the obstacle.

  Sometimes, the obstacles can continue well past their shelf life, and writing, is the only way to put the conflict into order, behind us.

  Why do I keep writing in the face of rejection?

  I just haven't found the right partner to go forward with.

Saturday, May 23, 2015

Memorial Day Writing


  It is not enough to be able to write, you have to be marketable to bring forth an income. A writer without income, is just a good story teller. Everybody loves to listen to the story teller, but no one wants to pay. It's like the listener feels that they are entitled to be entertained by a "ripping good yarn".

  The irony is, the listener will pay good money to purchase the newest book from Stephen King,  but, probably never consider his writing 40 years ago. Why?

  No credits to substantiate their expenditure.

  "The book" currently being written by me, is under siege. Not from thieves, pirates or oppression, but from the competition of day to day living. Not a word has been written this week, not because there was nothing to write, but the "business" of running the household outweighed the business of writing a book - that is currently worth $0 on the open market. Writing time has to be budgeted, and sometimes, protecting that time falls prey to the whims of family, bills, and "the day job".

  In the United States this weekend, it is Memorial Day. A time to remember the sacrifice of fallen soldiers in defense of this, and foreign countries. It is a favorably time of year, giving me the largest block of time away from "the day job" and the business of running the household, so I can write.

  I thank the servicemen for their sacrifice, so that I can write, for as we have learned, the world is not always a safe place for writers.

Saturday, May 9, 2015

The Revelation It is Done.


   In May 1989, I delivered a child into the world, wiping away the blood from her body with my tears. I would be fortunate six years later to have another safely arrive.

  In August 1997, I began to write of the role of a father in the lives of their children after divorce, and of how now no person should interfere with that. I did not know at the time, I would be asked to stand on every word I had written.

  In February 2005, I left two children in care to seek out a new role as a functional father. I never gave up my children, I never excused myself, and I maintained the pressence I could.

 In November 2012, I last spoke to both children, amid hostility in their household.

  On November 29, 2014, I posted Christmas cards to both of my children. On May 9, 2015, it came back marked "return to sender, no longer at this address."

  Our lives now exist on eight photographs, and within several hundred pages of a diary.

  I now understand when my father once told me, that he moved away "because it was easier that way". I now understand why the father of the girls mother moved away and never made contact - not because it was easier, but because he understood that if he remained, what poison would be inflected.

  My role, as their father, has been severed. It is, over.

  And now I make all things new.
  He also said to me "Write this, because these words are true, and can be trusted."
  And he said, "It Is Done."
      - Revelations 21 5-6.