Fledgling
Not sure I have ever written the word "fledgling" before but it already looks weird. I feel like a bird who is just about to be allowed to step out of the nest -- but the nest is very close to the ground so I won't need to plummet awkwardly, I will just gracefully walk out to my golf cart. I am so looking forward to it. I have been taking short walks around the neighborhood. Everyone else does that all the time but I am not really a walk around the neighborhood person. I would rather get on the golf cart and go walk around the farm. PLEASE.
And while I know this is terribly, ridiculously premature to tell (it's like being one month pregnant and announcing it), I am very excited about a phone conversation I had yesterday. As some of you know I have been writing letters and stories and reports and posts about my world and my life for many years. Way back when I first graduated from college, my father decided to encourage my passion for writing stuff by giving me a readership. He volunteered to copy and mail out one piece a month, to a group that would read and occasionally give feedback. This was well before the internet made it easy to spread stuff willy nilly. And then after that project fizzled when he died, and after I finished the phase of having babies, I restarted sending letters by email to a select group of readers. This went on for a few years before I felt finished with that. Then there was the Postcards blog, which is still active, but I have been sidetracked by the Couch musings.
Anyway, at the beginning of February I participated in a writer's "bootcamp" because Sindee alerted me to it again. Ten days of writing one thousand words a day, sent to a coach who reads your stuff every day but doesn't respond until it is all done. Fortunately for me the date for my feedback call wasn't planned until the first of March, and so I managed to squeeze in the cancer news and the surgery and a lot of recuperation before this call. I had so much fun talking to Max about writing.
So here is the breakthrough part, the news. I am ready to self-identify as a writer. This is a big deal for me -- we are all writers, after all. But I have become increasingly interested in figuring out what I really want to write. Max helped me to identify some steps in the short term to get me moving toward a real writing project. I have thousands and thousands of words already written, but it seems too cumbersome to do the work of getting all that stuff out and organized at this point. So I am to be allowed to continue to generate material for a while, with a goal in mind.
I feel exposed, saying all of this aloud. But I think the reason I am saying it is that I do intend to go through with the pregnancy, I intend to fly, I want to take this on. And I know this is right because I feel really excited about it. I even have a name now for what I do: it's creative non-fiction.
So thank you so much, Sindee, for being a fellow writer who has kept up with me and included me in your writing "journey" (I find that word so tacky even though it is what it means, it just feels overused) and for reminding me that Max is out there, encouraging a community of writers to carry on. And of course thank you to so many people who have never discouraged me from sending another Hana Report. There have been so many and they don't stop.
I had always intended to do this when I was 40 or 50 but recently had put this off until I am 80. Max says to do it now (of course). So this couch sentence has been fruitful -- it's like those people who go to prison and find out they like to read and study. I already knew this but I didn't have time. What an opportunity.
Life will get in the way soon, I am certain, but I have a better plan now for this part of who I am.
(Health news: sleeping is still not great, partly because I am so distracted by needing to get up and pee all the time. Will speak to the doctor about this. Maybe it is totally normal but I am sick of it. The only pain medication now is ibuprofen and Tylenol, in not whopping doses, just a steady supply. I am getting better and better. I sat at the table last night for Shabbat dinner and stayed for the whole meal.)
And while I know this is terribly, ridiculously premature to tell (it's like being one month pregnant and announcing it), I am very excited about a phone conversation I had yesterday. As some of you know I have been writing letters and stories and reports and posts about my world and my life for many years. Way back when I first graduated from college, my father decided to encourage my passion for writing stuff by giving me a readership. He volunteered to copy and mail out one piece a month, to a group that would read and occasionally give feedback. This was well before the internet made it easy to spread stuff willy nilly. And then after that project fizzled when he died, and after I finished the phase of having babies, I restarted sending letters by email to a select group of readers. This went on for a few years before I felt finished with that. Then there was the Postcards blog, which is still active, but I have been sidetracked by the Couch musings.
Anyway, at the beginning of February I participated in a writer's "bootcamp" because Sindee alerted me to it again. Ten days of writing one thousand words a day, sent to a coach who reads your stuff every day but doesn't respond until it is all done. Fortunately for me the date for my feedback call wasn't planned until the first of March, and so I managed to squeeze in the cancer news and the surgery and a lot of recuperation before this call. I had so much fun talking to Max about writing.
So here is the breakthrough part, the news. I am ready to self-identify as a writer. This is a big deal for me -- we are all writers, after all. But I have become increasingly interested in figuring out what I really want to write. Max helped me to identify some steps in the short term to get me moving toward a real writing project. I have thousands and thousands of words already written, but it seems too cumbersome to do the work of getting all that stuff out and organized at this point. So I am to be allowed to continue to generate material for a while, with a goal in mind.
I feel exposed, saying all of this aloud. But I think the reason I am saying it is that I do intend to go through with the pregnancy, I intend to fly, I want to take this on. And I know this is right because I feel really excited about it. I even have a name now for what I do: it's creative non-fiction.
So thank you so much, Sindee, for being a fellow writer who has kept up with me and included me in your writing "journey" (I find that word so tacky even though it is what it means, it just feels overused) and for reminding me that Max is out there, encouraging a community of writers to carry on. And of course thank you to so many people who have never discouraged me from sending another Hana Report. There have been so many and they don't stop.
I had always intended to do this when I was 40 or 50 but recently had put this off until I am 80. Max says to do it now (of course). So this couch sentence has been fruitful -- it's like those people who go to prison and find out they like to read and study. I already knew this but I didn't have time. What an opportunity.
Life will get in the way soon, I am certain, but I have a better plan now for this part of who I am.
(Health news: sleeping is still not great, partly because I am so distracted by needing to get up and pee all the time. Will speak to the doctor about this. Maybe it is totally normal but I am sick of it. The only pain medication now is ibuprofen and Tylenol, in not whopping doses, just a steady supply. I am getting better and better. I sat at the table last night for Shabbat dinner and stayed for the whole meal.)
What wonderful news Hana! I just learned that term also, when I signed up for a day-long creative non-fiction workshop with Janisse Rae. Have you read any of her books? Ecology of a Cracker Childhood is the one I've read, and I'm going to start Seed Revolution soon. I am delighted to hear you embrace your identity as a writer. I feel very lucky to have been introduced to your work already. Janisse studied with a teacher named Bill Kittridge and urged us to read his book Taking Care. I look forward to your next post.
ReplyDeleteTwo errors in my previous post corrected here: Janisse Ray. The Seed Underground.
Deleteoh good for you Hana. It is a huge step to go ahead and self-identify as a writer. You will understand then, that in spite of having a published book, and a magazine column, I still cannot smoothly self-identify as a writer myself!! It just feels so big and hard. But, indeed, here we both are, writing away.
ReplyDeleteI know that we have together felt taken aback by newbies/wannabes in agriculture lightly tossing around the title "farmer", when we felt that was a word that had to be earned. I suppose the writer title is similar. So for us, it takes intention and some amount of skill and experience to "earn the right" to call oneself a writer or farmer. I suspect there are those that could argue well the other side of this, but we'll let them write about it themselves. love love love reading your thoughts. ellen
btw, you are peeing a lot b/c you are in your first trimester :) So excited about the baby!
ReplyDeleteYou are hilarious.
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