THE ROAD TO WRITING

Lately I’ve thought a lot about why I write. I guess that’s because it becomes more and more difficult to do so. Yet when I think of other things I could be doing…or God forbid I take a day off to do something else, I know I won’t stop.
I write because of all the things I want to say that haven’t yet been said.
I write because there are people in my head who pinch me if I don’t tell their stories.
I write because it’s fulfilling to my soul.
I write because I’m not much good at anything else, though I’ve tried other things.
Here’s a list of things I’ve tried to occupy spare time:
Leather Work, One can only make so many billfolds, key chain tags, and belts before running out of customers.
Teaching Piano: This one filled a lot of satisfying hours, but didn’t challenge me much. After ten years, I had to quit. Writing had taken over my life.
Painting in Oils: After accumulating three or four dozen paintings I ran out of places to put them. A few sold and I managed to convince some people, mostly family, that they needed one cause I would one day be famous.
Quilting: After a disastrous and humorous afternoon at a quilting frame that resulted in my mother falling down laughing, I decided this definitely wasn’t my calling.
Sewing: I enjoyed this and for years bought no clothes but hubby’s work clothes. I was never the seamstress my mother was. She could look at something, cut out a pattern from her head and sew up a right nice outfit.
Giving Hubby a hard time: Acceptable during any phase of career changes.
Cooking: Baking is my favorite, but why cook what you can’t eat?
Gardening: Had some good years with this venture, grew fantastic crops, canned and froze them.
Rabbit & Chicken Care: Oh, yes, we came to Arkansas in our late 30s and determined to raise what we would eat. Put a few cattle on a fenced acreage, bought some rabbits and chickens and settled down as back-to-the-landers. A wonderful time when I learned to butcher chickens, rabbits and even a hog (once was enough for that). What we learned was that shoes and eyeglasses and dentures don’t grow on trees. One has to purchase “stuff” occasionally.
The office I write in today has gone through many phases. It once held a sewing machine and stacks of material. I made almost all our clothes. I knitted sweaters and learned to crochet (something else I’m not intended to do)
Then it held an old upright piano and an electronic piano during that phase.  I kept my saddle there too because the barn was across the road and open to one and all, including my lovely precocious, ornery Tennessee Walker Katy.
This has been a short tale of the road to writing, taken mostly because I stumbled onto it by accident, found I like it and here I remain.
Tell me why you write if you have the inclination.

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