Writing is my calling. Writing is my gift, ever since my ninth grade English teacher told me that on our last day of class. It was something that nobody could ever take away from me. It was something of my very own, that would always be with me.
And I’ve neglected it horribly these past few years.
I’ve been spending so much of my waking moments keeping my head above water, trying to keep from drowning because of real life matters, that I’ve not devoted anything to my passion and true career. It simply hasn’t figured at all in my life. It’s been more than two years since I wrote an op-ed piece, and I had to give up a plum gig at The Western Journal, things became so rough on my end.
Life was so much better when I was working as a mental health professional. I was going in every day, getting to truly help people have more fulfilling lives. I was making a difference in this world. And then I could go home and spend my own hours with my writing. And that’s the way things would have stayed had the economy not turned so wretched and forced me to find better higher employment elsewhere. Employment that has been unreliable, it’s turned out.
So, for the past couple of years my writing has suffered. And then this past August I decided it was time to finally complete the memoir that I began in 2014. For three solid months if I wasn’t working or eating or sleeping or taking care of my dog, I was writing. I went WEEKS without showering, I was so “in the zone” with my manuscript. Until finally in mid-November the first draft was completed.
It was a grand return to form. And I don’t want it to stop. I’m back in the saddle again and the last thing I want to do is to find myself slid out of it once more.
So I’m going to commit myself to something for 2025: to write a new op-ed piece every week. Hopefully for publication elsewhere, but here on this blog if nowhere else. I need to plunge back into the fray, and involve myself again in the larger world. Maybe if I do that my writing chops will come back full-bore. Maybe I can also overcome the indifference to things that I have come to feel. Perhaps it will even improve my already existing manuscript: something I have been told is good already, but I know it can be better. And I really do want to see it on a bookstore’s shelf someday. A story about mental illness, swindling operations, how to make a movie, and twelve months crossing America deserves a shot at traditional publication and that’s going to be a goal for this year too.
I guess this is all a roundabout way of saying that y’all can expect some more writing here and elsewhere for awhile. A few years ago I did a blog post each day for Lent. If I can do that, I believe I can sit down and write a new opinion piece every week. It may not be my best work especially just jumping back into battle… but it will be some movement forward. And that’s what matters most.
Look for the first piece soon.
