Writing?


"I'm a reader not a writer"

"Wait a minute," says my friend Chris. "I thought you said writing wasn't appealing anymore."

Funny about that. I haven't felt the urge to write for many years. Too busy working and reading. But now that I have a lot of spare time the idea doesn't seem so nasty. There is still of course the fear of embarrassment. Oh yes, I also remember a bit of unpleasantness concerning deadlines and editors and criticism. It's a fact though that when prompted the other day by Max for what it was I really dreamt of doing I confessed to a desire to write a novel. Not a direction taken in any of my previous endeavours.

Decades ago I wrote short essays, news stories and commentary about school, work, amateur sport, sexual politics and AIDS. These went hand and hand with my activities in those areas. I'm not sure I want to return to the scenes of past battles, although there remain some unanswered questions and many unresolved issues. I'm not eager to take up again the roles of activist, organizer, spokesperson or arbitrator. Writing fiction though, creating an imaginary world with the grist of my past experience, feels like an interesting and worthwhile challenge.

I don't know if I can actually do it. I certainly don't know how. But I want to try. And I have a story I would like to tell.

Before that project gets underway I had better get back into to habit of writing again. I need to practice and this weblog, a diary by any other name, is a fun way to start.

Posted: Sat - July 19, 2003 at 04:36 PM          

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