In my quest to write this blog, I find myself all over the page, if you will. Like all lives, mine is connected from the prior day and so on. However, for most, their lives are basically connected in short terms to their past. In other words, they are probably not that connected to their distant pasts as it pertains to their present. For me though, writing has been a constant thread needling through my life since I was a teen.
So my tapestry of blog creation may seem like as if I had a few stiff drinks before planting myself in front of the computer. My point being that it is difficult to write in a chronologically organized manner as it pertains to my pains and triumphs in the field of writing.
It is my objective to create an image of my experiences that you can relate to. In order for me to do this effectively, I will be rummaging through my mental attic, unpacking old memories and intertwining them with my life today. Since we are already on the subject of a single thread extending the length of my life thus far, it seems like a good place to start unraveling.
Someone once told me that when a person wakes up thinking about something and goes to bed thinking about the same thing, then that is what that person should be doing in their life. Although I assume one can take this literally, I actually believe it to mean that which is most thought of in one’s life. Another person once told me that if something brings you peace and happiness, then why would you want to do anything else.
These are bits of information that sit on the back burner of my brain sometimes stewing, boiling at other times but at the very least simmering at any given time.
This means that today is intrinsically linked to a night when I was 19 and walking outside at night dreaming of becoming a writer someday like Stephen King. It is linked to a day ten years ago when I was a reporter for a weekly paper looking for my next story lead. It’s also linked to the day a few years ago when I started my own newspaper, to the day I finished a short story that didn’t get accepted for publication and to every other day of my existence since I was a teenager.
It’s the same thread. It never breaks and seems to be on a spool that lasts the length of this life on earth. There have been times I was so angry because of the difficulties of succeeding as a writer that I hacked at that thread with an ax. I would soon learn that the ax handle broke before I could hack through that thread. As I wrote in an earlier blog; it’s difficult to be the proverbial jack-ass always chasing the carrot but only rarely getting a nibble if even a bite at all.
Some of you may recognize the title of this blog segment as the title of a Neil Young song. I like the song because it elegantly expresses the desire of a junkie to chase the high at any cost…even unto death. It’s poetic and real. I equate the desire for me to write to the junkie longing for the high. Although I would not kill or steal to achieve the high I desire, I do certainly understand the chase to gain that high. The only difference I believe is that they and I experience different types of needles.
“I’ve seen the needle
and the damage done
A little part of it in everyone
But every junkie’s
like a settin’ sun.”
~Neil Young
In closing, I would like to emphasize that this entire blog series is a journey. It’s a journey where I have used faith and hope to guide me for over 30 years. It is not just a story of the negative and positive aspects of my experiences to becoming and being a writer and the outcomes which have resulted. This is about sharing a life experience with you involving both of these elements.
God has all the secrets and He’s not one to reveal them easily or gossip. However one receives this blog and what they get out of it, is one of those secrets. Sometimes what we need to hear the most is in the words of others. I believe this is why I am so passionate about writing. Have you ever considered how enlightened you have become because of the written word? How many times has the Bible, a poem or a story of triumph affected or even changed you? It is my hope that this blog series speaks to everyone who reads it. And if it does, it is not because of me, but because God gave me this opportunity to write about faith and hope and its importance in all of our journeys within this life.
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