Reasons I Retired and What's Happening Now. Reason #94
Words. And lots of them.
It’s been almost eleven months since I closed the door on the little blue classroom in the corner of West Catholic for the last time. In those eleven months, I’ve written a LOT more words. I’ve added two new spiral notebooks to the growing pile. I’ve written a Bible study for caregivers of ill spouses. I’ve added a lot of blogs to my Substack.
Here’s a little quick math for you number fanatics:
Bible study 27,000 words
Weekly blog 1500X 52=78000 words
Church blog 800X40=32000 words
TOTAL OF 137,000 WORDS
But there are a LOT MORE words to be written.
Reason 94: Words. And lots of them.
The blue one with the battered cover is the oldest of the more than 40 spiral notebooks piled around my home office. The date on the cover is 1996, the year I began my first full-time teaching positi…
Why is writing so important? Why are some of us born with ink in our veins and the need—no, the passion—to write?
Writing has served me well since I found an old notebook of my dad’s in my grandmother’s attic. I penned my first novel, an untitled space odyssey story with a crew searching the galaxy to find a rare element to save Earth, when I was in sixth grade. Several hundred short stories—including a couple of prize winners—and three unpublished novels later, I’m still working on refining my craft and I am more convinced than ever:
WRITING IS MAGIC.
In what other medium can you take a pencil and a piece of paper and create a whole new world and a whole new language without having to learn anything about geography or chemistry or linguistics?
In what other realm can you transport yourself through a portal beyond your computer or your tablet and into a world of fairies?
By what other vehicle can you reach the limits of time and space, and then keep on going?
In what other way can you convey your thoughts, your ideas, your imagination to hundreds, thousands, or millions of readers by pushing a single button that says “publish”
?
Writing is magic. It is cathartic and problem-solving, engaging our creativity with our memories, turning monsters into heroes and really bad and depressing thoughts into challenges overcome and lessons learned.
WRITING IS MAGIC.
As long as I am able to hold a pen or a pencil, or type away on a keyboard, or speak into a recorder, I will embrace the magic.
I WILL WRITE.
These lovely novels that only reside on my desktop may never see the light of day or be published in the conventional sense. It doesn’t matter. It was the creation of them that was magic.
We all need more magic in our lives. I am happy to be able to provide just a little.
Hi, Readers, I’d like to ask a quick favor. If you’ve enjoyed this post, maybe even learned something from it, would you consider sharing it on your own social media or email or even restacking it here on Substack? I’d appreciate it as I try to spread the realities of adult autism and widowhood!