Two sides of the story

Since I signed my book contract with Pearlsong Press, I have been learning the truth of something Sharyn McCrumb wrote in Writers Digest more than a decade ago.  There are now two sides to the story of my writing life.

In one version of the story, I am the solitary writer at my desk, fingers speeding (or taking a slow stroll . . . or hopping in place) across the keyboard.  It's just me and my characters.  I listen to them, listen for them and do my best to express how they feel by way of dialogue, action and interaction.  That story of my life is familiar from many years of experience. 

Recently my father started cleaning out the garage.  While I burrowed through some of my own boxes, left and long forgotten on the shelves at the back, I discovered a manuscript I wrote and revised nearly two decades ago.  Cross legged on the dining room floor, I looked over the first page, only to find myself a chapter into the story ten minutes later.  Though I remembered the manuscript, I had forgotten many of the details.  Those opening pages, about a young female horse dealer examining a broken down race horse, startled me.  When I wrote that scene all those years ago, I clearly tuned in to the character's expertise as well as her compassion toward the lovely, lame horse.  What would she do, decide to rescue him or walk away from the ongoing expense his healing required?

I write very different stories now, but that process remains a constant in my life.  The other side of the story of a writer's life is still new.  Contacting likely venues for booksignings.  Investigating groups who would enjoy readings.  (For Love is the Thread, that ranges from women's groups, cancer support groups, andknitting circles as well as the more traditional option of bookstores.)  The public face of my writing life continues to develop, stretch and evolve. 

A Change in the Weather

Last week a friend of mine spent three days in the hay field, baling 1000 bales in 100 degree weather.  She ended the task sunburnt and coughing from the motes of dried grass.  We laughed together this week over the shift in the weather, with a temperature drop of forty degrees, the cool rain.

Today I realized a similar shift is happening inside me.  I did not recognize that part of my self felt ashamed of my work history, career choices . . . call it what you will.  Though I have known from the time I was nine years old that I was a writer and that I intended to become an author as my full time job, I have also integrated some cultural, ancestral and familial attitudes toward creativity as a career.

One example:  In my twenties, the man I married used to tell our friends (in front of me, I might add) "Leslie writes, but anyone can write if they have time to waste."  I could give many more examples from other voices in my life, who up 'til now have lived in my head without my knowledge.  But that one is enough.

Now, as Love is the Thread becomes a physical reality, I am growing aware that everything I did, everything I planned and intended, has indeed brought me to this moment when I am becoming an author, as opposed to someone who, shhh, writes.  I feel, not the weight of wasted years, but the depth of experience gained from all those years. Experience on the page, yes, but of equal importance, if not more, is the experience off it.

I am grateful for all I have learned and am learning, and happy that what I have struggled with and toward, authorship, is both the gift I possess and the gift I have to share.  The word "authority" has at its root the word "author."  Think I'll ponder that for a while.