I own an entire shelf worth of books about writing, which has led some to ask if I am a writer, or at the very least if I aspire to be one.  In the past I would always answer yes, I am a writer. Which is not totally true unless you count writing down a few things, being overly self-deprocating and then deleting it all, as writing. But if that combined with reading countless books “on writing” is what you call writing, then yes, I am a writer.

Tonight, after having spent about 3 months without a computer of my own, I was very excited to get back in to my writing groove. I stopped by the Mac store on my way home from work to grab my computer, then raced home, poured a glass of wine, and prepared myself to write a New York Times bestseller. I then realized that  while my computer was being fixed they had to remove my old (and already erased) hard drive in order to give me a new one, leaving me without Microsoft office or word. So I got up, went to my shelves, grabbed two books about writing and got in bed.

As I scanned the worn pages of Anne Lamott’s bestseller “Bird by Bird” I began to notice how well I could recite so many of the lines and move smoothly through the pages as If I was reading letters from and old boyfriend or dear friend. I began to notice a few things for the first time…one that her book is about writing, and two that you have to write (and write a lot) to be a writer. Here are a few lines that I had already highlighted:

“Do it every day for a while,” my father kept saying, “Do it as you would do scales on the piano. Do it by prearrangement with yourself. Do it as a debt of honor. And make a commitment to finishing things.”

“Don’t worry about doing it well yet…Just start getting it down.”

“…you hold an imaginary gun to your head and make yourself stay at the desk”

“Bird by bird…Just take it bird by bird.”

For obvious reasons, here I am, finally writing. Of course I’ve written before, and this may turn out to be just like the other times when I would write for a month or for a week before turning to my bookshelves again. Reading for me is much easier, it is my drug, my hideout, my getaway, my adventure…my first love. Writing is work. And so, I have decided to put away the books for a while (of course not the stories, just the books about writing), and write. I am starting this blog with hopes that it will give me some sort of accountability, some incentive that all my fans in blog world will be expecting, hoping and foaming at the mouth for a new post…and the least I can do is keep the masses from rabies. Clearly it is best for this post is ending, with the talk of rabies and all, so I’m not exactly sure what I will be posting about, and I am not promising it will be quality writing, but I have decided to just take it…

blog by blog.

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