I have to pinch myself a lot lately. I have been a writer my entire life but only now am I writing with earnestness and purpose, like my life depended on it, and I love it. I want to sing out, “I want to be a paperback writer” because, all of the sudden, I am a paperback writer! And now, on top of that, I am blogging about it too!
The reality is that I gained this new-found confidence when I finally became sober. When I was drinking and using drugs I was writing but I wasn’t able to keep my mind focused on what my calling was, I was too busy looking for the next fleeting high. Now that I am plunged into the depths of profound sobriety, my restless mind pounces on new ideas relentlessly. And, as one who was introduced as “my Grandson, the one with the vivid imagination”, I can’t help but see the world through a lens that is more convex than the concave glasses everyone else is peering through.
My routine is to write on the bus. I work in Seattle and live in Tacoma and so my writing salon is the Sound Transit bus, the 590. Both the north-bound (in the morning) and the south-bound (in the evening) is my literary capsule, driving through time and space while I am cocooned in my thoughts. I often write about people I see on the bus. If any of my characters seem familiar, and you take the 590, I may be writing about you. My inspiration often comes from seemingly inconsequential occurrences. As an example, seeing the rivulets of water tracing the glass on a rainy day, or overhearing a conversation between two people where one person says, in exasperation, “They can’t keep us in suspense like this!” From these small happenings I spin great tales in my head, with ideas cascading off of one another and building momentum until I spill over with excitement about the images that I conjure up with my vivid imagination. And then I get to my destination and I get off the bu
Comments
Post a Comment