How It Started
I was cuddled up in my red nylon sleeping bag in the third row of seats in our 1980s Suburban on my way to Grandma’s in southern Illinois, seven hours away from home in Indiana. Lips puckered and eyes all squinty, I popped lemon drops I had secreted away while breathlessly devouring the story of Cimorene in Patricia C. Wrede’s Dealing with Dragons.
I loved how this story turned the fairy tale world upside down in a way I had never experienced before, and as I strained to read in the falling dusk, quickly scanning as we passed under streetlamps, I basked in each and every detail.
One week later on the dusty wood floor of my bedroom, I pushed aside my strewn toys, and made room for my notebook (the special one with the pastel and glitter unicorn head stickers proudly displayed on the cover). This notebook had been reserved for some unforeseen great purpose, and I was going to use my 4-Color pen, usually reserved for my diary, for this critical mission. I clicked down the purple and began to write my very own fairy tale gone lightly feminist and certainly askew. Surely I would be an amazing writer.
I don’t think I ever finished the story. Growing impatient with my inability to capture exactly what I wanted to say, I rewrote the beginning several times. It was challenging to capture the essence of my heroine who was just as sharp and smart as Cimorene. I could tell that my work was derivative and not as good as the original. Disappointed, I returned my precious pen to the side of my diary under the mattress and put away my unicorn notebook.
This experience with a book taught me that I longed to read wonderful books and write smart, funny stories. Having faced that failure with the unicorns, however, I decided that maybe writing wasn’t for me. I contented myself with soaking up C.S. Lewis and Lucy Maud Montgomery and gave up trying to develop my own writer’s voice.
Can I Still Be a Writer in Midlife?
Here I am now, 40 years old, with a MacBook Air and an office of my own: finally, the perfect environment to do that writing that I’ve always longed to do, and I find myself afraid. “Who could possibly care about anything I have to say,” I think, quickly followed by, “Am I even willing to put myself out there?”
Midlife is a very good time to look around at what you’ve gotten around to or not and decide if any of that should be picked back up.
I am picking up writing. I started inauspiciously. I read a little bit of Julia Cameron’s frequently recommended book The Artists’ Way, in which she talks about the importance of morning pages. I also at the same time found a website, 750words.com, which would allow me to anonymously and privately write my morning pages but also keep track of how many days I had written. That’s where I started.
Also, because of the pandemic, I was lucky enough to stumble across London Writer’s Salon and their Writer’s Hour. Everyone would join a Zoom call and set an intention to write for 50 minutes with on-camera accountability.
With these tools, I began to write several times a week until, by the end of 2021, I was writing consistently every day the morning pages at least, and often more. But it was all journaling and writing for myself. Nothing was facing outward, none of it was stuff that I’d ever be willing to share with others.
I was pretty sure that none of that counted. I wasn’t really a writer. No one even knew that I was doing it. How could it possibly count?
This year has been full of many changes, many wonderful changes, in fact. I found a new love and a new life with that new love, and things are rosy and wonderful. I’ve never felt more accepted and appreciated for who I am, neediness and all. With that acceptance, I feel finally brave enough to start putting something out there.
I hope that if you have something that you have wanted to do forever (waterski, paint, run a marathon) but have been too afraid to do it that you will take one small step today toward whatever that is. For me, it was writing morning pages until I felt most at peace with myself in front of a keyboard or a notebook.
What would you like to take a small step toward? What dream have you deferred?