I DIDN'T KNOW YOU WERE A WRITER?
I often have people ask me
how I started writing. At first I was offended by the question. Living
in a state of never ending paranoia I imagined a sarcastic tone in the
question that I'm sure wasn't really there, or maybe it was. To me the
implication always was I didn't have the qualifications required to put
words on paper.
Ever since I could
remember, I held to the philosophy that inside every human there lurked
one magnificent painting they could share with the world, and a great
book that the rest of us should have the right to read.
I assumed it was a matter
of being in the right place at the right time; much like finding your
true love, and you would just sit down and write something better and
shorter than, "Gone With The Wind". (I'm still waiting for Mitchell's
great book. I guess that is just one persons opinion of course.)
I have found in practice,
there could possibly be a few minor flaws in my theory of inborn
creativity. While a desk top computer makes a valiant effort at
correcting my spelling shortcomings and grammatical deficiencies, some
of us, including myself have a total inability
to ascertain the correct position of commas and semi-colons in any form
of writing. This is a condition that appears to be deteriorating with
use.
I belong to two writing
groups who seem to be in direct conflict with each other on the subject
of punctuation. I now take copies of my work to a group on Tuesday who
spatters it with well meaning dots, dashes, and hieroglyphics of all
sorts. Only to find on Thursday another group removes or replaces
everything their predecessors accomplished two nights before.
Unfortunately I haven't the
ability to determine who is right or wrong in this never ending
conflict because in my mind both versions read just fine to me. But
then I kind of like things the way I write them in the first place.
This brings us back to the
original question, why I write. With little or no chance of ever
being published and the only people seeing my efforts dissecting it
weekly like pen wielding surgeons, why bother?
I
can no longer imagine my life without writing. It sometimes feels as if
my life up until now was a prelude to the time that I could sit at a
keyboard to create the people who inhabit stories that only I know.
While my efforts may forever in some peoples mind be grammatically
incorrect, shallow, and even insipid. I may share them at times if I
wish, but they come from inside of me and are forever mine alone. I
write because I have to, it is part of who I am.
by Allan Ansorge
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