May 11, 2021
My first completed and printed book arrives today. How nice. I think I have just about enough copies to distribute amongst those who really would like one. I will keep one here to look at occasionally. I will keep one for the reason of vanity? No, I will keep one more to prove that I can finish something. There is a need to demonstrate to myself that I am real, I can write — however bad or beautifully. I am hopeful that seeing my work in a printed, bound and organized shape will help steer me into finishing other pieces. Poetry book number two is underway and can use a bit of coaxing to get it smoothed, finished. The so-called novel is in rough draft form and may stay that way until my heirs and assigns can deal with it. Ha. Today, I am a pen-man, waiting for a package of value. All of this excitement makes me feel like an honest writer. A real one. That is how I felt when I sat down yesterday to finish a part of a requested piece. I thought, “Yeah…I CAN do it!”
So, a finished book is part of the writing game I always wanted to be in. When I think of those who played piano from age 12 and now are very skilled, I am always amazed. I admire that sort of dedication. I think, “Well, that person has always been an artist!” That I started writing at 12 and continued to do so for the better part of the following 58 years is an experience I tend to disavow, discredit. I, of course, am not an artist? I have not always been an artist? What? did I never learn how? A strange circumstance, since I wholly believe that the doing of a thing is quite a bit more important than the learning how. Practice, they say, makes perfect.
Why the limits? Why deny what I am/have always been doing? For the big and famous folk was this so? This feeling of fraud? …and further, why do I choose writing poetry as a hobby (if that is all it amounts to)? I don’t see that I necessarily have any burning need to communicate and I don’t think I have anything new to say. Isn’t that curious? Why be a writer? At the core of it is, while I don’t think I have anything important to say, I do love to say..I do love to just talk. I talk out of my hind side mostly, but talk is what I do. Those around me, in my ‘inner circle’, might well agree. “Yeah, he’s a talker for sure…”
Cheers.
Robert On The Air 