A Word Person

So I signed myself up for hd's online writing group, The Word People. I have always wanted to be a part of a writer's group. My mother is a professional writer (a journalist) and I grew up surrounded by the smart, funny, ambitious, and successful women in her writer's group. I always hoped I'd be part of one someday.

Writing has always been a part of my life, since long before I learned the physical act of writing. I imitated my mother by scrawling on message pads, and typing on the table. The hum and ding! of her electric typewriter were the soundtrack of my childhood. But more importantly, I spun stories in my head, an activity I called "pretend games." I spent hours outside bouncing a pink Spal.deen making up my stories. Eventually I learned to write them down, but even now, my brain moves so much more quickly than my hands. (And my hands move pretty quickly, as anyone who has heard me type can attest.) I still keep spiral notebooks on a shelf in our bedroom, one for each "story idea," some of those ideas with their roots as far back as the sixth grade. At this point in my life, I don't know that I will ever publish the fiction I write. Technically I am a published writer of some minor non-fiction work. But my heart is with my stories, and I will always write them.

I started keeping a diary when I was ten, as a place to offload my anxiety about my increasingly powerful, and increasingly numerous, crushes on girls. The following year my English teacher assigned journal entries, and I've been carrying around a battered composition book ever since. At different times I've also kept a dream journal,a book journal, and briefly in the 8th grade I had a special notebook just to write about all the spirits my friends and I contacted with our all-powerful Oui.ja board.

I started this blog not as writing practice, but as a way to join the TTC blog community. I was excited to engage with so many interesting and intelligent women who were on the same path Co and I were just beginning. But I can't deny that I love, love, loved the medium. I was excited about a blogging community not only because I could participate while sitting on my ass (though I can hardly say that's not a plus), but because writing is my preferred mode of communication. Given the choice, I would probably always prefer to interact with people in writing. I am much more facile at the written word than at human interaction, I think.

I'm not making a strict writing plan, because I really don't have time. I know that's a lame excuse but the working mom thing is kicking my butt and writing isn't the only thing that's taking the back burner. I want to do yoga at least a few times a week, and that isn't happening either. However, I do have these pockets of time -- on Wednesdays, when I have a number of free periods at work -- sometimes on Tuesday afternoons when I have no extracurricular activities -- sometimes over the weekend when the baby is sleeping. So my goal is to fill at least some of those pockets with writing.