New New New (New?) Start

I've been a writer of some sort or another for most of my life. When I first started I was young and wrote about anything and everything for no reason except that I just liked doing it. I was inspired by stories and ideas and I had some in my head that I usually wanted to get out, for better or for worse.

I started out dealing chiefly in science fictiony fare, but by third or fourth grade, the poetry bug had bitten me. As I entered writing contests and repeatedly lost, I kept learning more and more about different forms of poetry, building the idea in my head that those who judged writing contests for school kids had no interest in anything resembling science fiction. That tendency and drive to write science fiction slowly faded, marked by a brief nova-like flame out that included writing a light-hearted, bare-bones science fiction play performed by friends for both classes in fifth or sixth grade. Much to my horror, a few of my friends from those days remember the play – and I think I successfully penned and put up a sequel – and one of them still has a copy on the original dot matrix printer paper. In a turn of humbling events, those same friends express enjoyment and marvel that anything like that even occurred.

Eventually writing faded from my self-image as I was busy with a number of things. Most of those things involved keeping grades up like a smart kid was supposed to do, denying any inclination to pursue clowning instead of a Smart Kid Career, and subsequently changing majors multiple times while stressing myself out by trying to do what a smart kid is expected to do. The moment that I realized that I was the one at the helm and that college could be anything I wanted it to be was an empowering one. One of the things I did was to listen to my penchant for performing. Another important thing I did was to search my insides and realize – remember, more specifically – that writing was once something that I loved doing.

My poetry turnout started climbing up from nothing to a point where I could tell when something was forming and I'd write it down on any paper I had available. In rough times, I would crank out quite a bit. This was something that continued well through my Ringling years, where I experienced a lot of frustration, mostly of the confidence and romantic kind. I now have a couple of folders full of typed up and printed out works, as well as those and other works in their hand-written form. It's been very important to me to write out poems by hand. There's something perfectly tactile and to me, essential about writing it out on paper with the faint scent of ink drifting to my nose. I've even started playing with the idea again of making a chap book.

I started writing freelance music reviews and preview articles in college and kept at it through my first year on Ringling Brothers. I reached a point where I was tired of the rat race to review CDs and get interviews with bands. This was 2001, still before the internet reached anything resembling the convenience it now has. without recording equipment I couldn't reliably do phone interviews, and without reliable internet connectivity, I couldn't make submission deadlines. I left the freelance music writing game.

My dad has always been on me about keeping my journals and blogs straight to allow me to write a book about my travels and experiences. Although I don't have the confidence he has that any appreciable amount of people (and by that I mean "any number that would buy a nice load of books from a publisher who might take a chance on me). My friend Sean and his wife stopped by Circus World Museum with their kids yesterday and both of them asked about my writing. Sean talks me up as blogging before blogging, as I used to write and mass email update screeds to friends.

It all just prompted me to shut up and listen and look at myself again. People still ask me about my writing and comment about my writing. People are still encouraging about my writing. I decided this past week that I would make a commitment to write something in each of my two public blogs at least once a week. I failed at this before, when I was a blogger for Juice magazine blogs in Des Moines. I just stopped submitting after a while, wondering why the heck anyone - if anyone - would read what I have to say about my life touring or making things work between tours and between contracts. I wasn't writing about sports. I wasn't writing about politics. I wasn't writing about sex or social issues. Those were the blogs getting the most hits.I didn't even write my editor. I just stopped blogging and stepped back.

So: once a week I shall try to write something. I don't think it should be difficult. I have a thing or three that has been bumping around in my head. I'm in the middle of my most creatively productive summer yet, I had a great story from this week involving spiders, and there's still the saga of Twilight and "Glee" that I have to tell.

I may even start to lay down some poetry. Don't worry: it's far shorter than my prose.