Wandering With Words

​

Categories

All
Humour
Poetry
True Story
Wisdom

Archives

January 2023
December 2022
November 2022
October 2022
September 2022
August 2022
July 2022
June 2022
May 2022
April 2022
March 2022
February 2022
January 2022
December 2021
November 2021
October 2021
August 2021
July 2021
June 2021
May 2021
April 2021
March 2021
February 2021
October 2020
September 2020
June 2020
May 2020
May 2018

  • HOME
  • BLOG
  • Short Stories
  • Behind The Camera
  • CONTACT

1/16/2022

empty nest

Comments

Read Now
 
Picture
​The nest was empty.
  It was time to make some changes.  I wanted to be myself; I wanted to be free from the stigma of being the wife of Bruce.
I enrolled in a Creative Writers Class at the TAFE College. To become a writer and change the world appealed to me. The class of ’78 was a group of ten people all with an agenda but not necessarily about becoming a writer.  

Picture
​‘Your first exercise will be stream of conscience.  Write for ten minutes every thought that enters your mind,’ the tutor said.
I looked at him; then at my blank page; then into my mind – another blank. Finally a thought wandered along. I grabbed it and wrote it down. How I hated this lesson.  I simply could not bring myself to write down all the silly, inane thoughts that came into my mind.  ‘Times up,’ the tutor called.
We read out our pieces, the tutor fixed his eye of learning on me, I knew I had failed.  ‘Gwen, you are incredibly disciplined.’  What’s wrong with that, I thought angrily, bowing under his condemnation.
Not about to quit I turned up to class again.  ‘We will write another piece of stream of conscience again,’ the tutor announced. I groaned, there rose within me such a rebellion that I thought, whoa, what gives here?  As the next couple of weeks passed, I was forced to do some heart searching.

Picture
I discovered somewhere in my 45 years I’d lost myself, I was a sham, a fake and I didn’t know how or why it had happened. I knew though, that if I wanted to be a writer I needed to break down the barriers and open up myself to life.  I had built walls of self defence to save being hurt.  I need to feel hurt, love, and joy no matter what.  People would get hurt because I spoke from the hip, yet I had to be myself without shame.  The changes were insurmountable. I would fail and did so many times.
The class of ’78 broke up at the end of the year but the course of my life was set.  I would be a writer. I went on to study the art and craft of writing, gaining diplomas along the way.  Already I was being changed, slowly, slowly.
I have failed to write the great Australian novel with two novels half finished. Instead there are many stories published in anthologies along with two biographies and several books written by other people and edited by me.  You see, they are the stories of other people not my own stories.  I’m still in hiding.  The failure to feel and open myself up still lingers like a faint odour. A failed writer in many respects but deadly determined to enrich this world by what I have written even if it is another’s story.

Share

Comments
comments powered by Disqus
Details

    Author: 
    A rebuke to a man of common sense is more effective than a hundred lashes on the back of a rebel.
    A proverb

    Archives

    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    October 2020
    September 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    May 2018

    Categories

    All
    Humour
    Poetry
    True Story
    Wisdom

    RSS Feed

Photos used under Creative Commons from pstenzel71, candi..., shixart1985, ell brown, Denkrahm
  • HOME
  • BLOG
  • Short Stories
  • Behind The Camera
  • CONTACT