Once Upon a Pen

At this moment, I am sitting at my desk gazing out my window along with my very bored cat.  We are both dreaming—he of the day when the icy white stuff goes away and he can find his way back to his hunter self; and me of the day when my head clears and I find my way back to my writer self.  I am not sure I should really try to speak for a fluff ball who speaks Meow, but I think we both feel a bit lost. 

Life has a funny way of knocking you off your path before you even realize it’s happened. You wander along, thinking you are picking your way along just fine, when suddenly, you discover you are in a desert or a forest, and nothing makes sense anymore.  The path is there, you are quite sure, but it is no longer visible.  Sometimes you can see it shimmering just ahead, but when you try to reach for it, you discover it is only a mirage, not the real thing.  Then you are forced to wander around for who-knows-how-long, searching for the real path.

For most of my life, my path has had strong signposts:  Jesus, writing, teaching, family, home.  Sometimes I have fallen into the occasional ditch or have wandered along a side trail, but I have never really lost sight of the signposts until this past year.  The one that says “writing” is becoming faded, almost impossible to see.  I know it’s there, because I still have a book scheduled for release next fall.  I still have self-publishing projects to work on.  But all around me, I only see barren desert hills, and my well of creativity seems empty. 

True, I have an undeniable, objective identity as an “author” now.  Common sense tells me that my writer self is still there but only taking a nap.  How odd to think, though, that only a few short years ago, I could have wiped away most of everything I’d ever written, and I could have completely erased my self-identity as “a writer”.  No one but those who love me would have wondered or cared where that part of me had gone, and even my loved ones would have soon forgotten. 

But now, even if I wanted to, I couldn’t do that because I have articles and books out in the world that have their own existence and identity, kind of like my grown-up children.  I have crossed that line that I always dreamed of—that line between “writer” and “author”—and now I find myself standing near the door of that literary world I always wanted to be part of, gazing at all my fellow writers as they chat and forge connections that they may just help them find their place in that world.  I actually have a place in there somewhere–I know I do–but I can’t find it.

The truth is, I don’t know whether I want to leave or enter, even if I do have a place waiting for me, because something disquieting has happened in the literary world over the past decade.  This world where I used to feel I belonged has changed drastically, and I have been pushed to the margins.  Or I’ve stepped to the margins.  I’m not sure which it is, but either possibility leaves me feeling like I did in high school:  in the group but not really part of it. 

It’s funny, even ironic.  I’m one of those mysterious, almost magical people who I used to admire and envy, so how am I once again a misfit lurking near the door?   How do I find my place in this new literary world where I no longer comfortably fit?  I don’t know, but I do know that it’s time to either figure it out or bow out.  I’ll share more on this later.