Welcome to IWSG Day. The goal of this blog hop is to share and encourage. Writers can express doubts and concerns without fear of appearing foolish or weak. Those who’ve been through the fire can offer assistance and guidance. It’s a haven for insecure writers of all kinds. IWSG is the brainchild of our ninja leader Alex Cavanaugh. I’m delighted to be cohosting this month along with: Shannon Lawrence, Diedre Knight, and Pat Garcia. For links to all IWSG contributors, click here.
August optional question: As a writer/author what is
something you regret? Or something that you wish you'd done differently in your
writing process?
My biggest regret is not knowing myself well enough to start a dedicated writing practice sooner. Priorities were what they were when I was young. Taking care of a child while working full time, caring for a home, saving money, of course all these things were important, and I let them override my desire to write.
In spite of myself, that buried want forced its way out. I wrote an essay about blueberry picking with my daughter and her cousins when they were little, but didn’t have enough hutzpah to do anything with it. I composed poems sometimes, edited them like crazy and even submitted a few, but nothing happened.
At work, I drowned myself in memos and training documents, because they meant writing. As a recruitment manager for a national retail chain, I hired creative talent and did a lot of work for a copy director. At one point, he had an open copywriter position. As part of the hiring process, each candidate was required to develop copy for an upcoming ad campaign. I wrote my own copy, wondering if I’d have the nerve to present it to him and be considered for the open position.
I didn't.
It took until I was in my late-forties, when my first piece was published in a niche magazine for me to call myself a writer. A few years later, a job elimination that I call one of my life's greatest blessings, fanned the proverbial flames. Before that, I hadn't really admitted to myself that I was essentially going through the motions in my career. But when life gets yanked out from under you, things get real fast. At fifty years old and unexpectedly unemployed, I immediately understood with complete certainty that whatever I did next had to involve writing. Every iteration of myself since then has.
These days, I’m proud of my writing, but wonder if I'd been true to myself earlier, whether I might have accomplished more.
What are your regrets related to writing?
