I haven't written anything here since last October because I have been writing other things. Lots of other things, fiction, mostly short stories, some of them not so short. And I have been seriously attempting - for the first time in years - to get some of the stories published. This is what I did for many years before my wife and I met 27 years ago. She was a student in a writing class I was teaching. I was having some success back then and had been having some success for several years. But I wasn't happy about it. Being a writer is not a happy way to live. My wife once asked why she never hears me laughing when I am writing funny things. Laughing is for readers not writers. Besides, too much misery goes into even the happiest sentence. When we decided to be married, I decided to retire my misery and allow myself to be happy. And I did. And I am. And I have been for all these years.
Not that I haven't written in all that time. I never stopped.
But now I am back at it in the old way. Steady. Every day. I even published something a couple of weeks ago. It is a story called "Raining Indians" and it is not a happy story . But who could write a happy story set in Gallup, NM? It is the first time I've published a short story in a long time and the first time in an online publication. It's called the Provo Canyon Review. Go to the site, click on the story title. That's all it takes. I like it.
I had a good career as a journalist and editor (with a very strange and unintended finish as a corporate vice president for a business doomed by its maniacal founder and CEO). I had a knack for it. All of it. In fact, I had a talent for it. My old therapist (who saved me from my encounter with the maniac or at least made it possible for me to save myself) once said my journalism career was taking the easy way out and jerked me up short. "You have a gift," he said. "Journalism was easy. Using your gift is difficult."
Now I've retired from journalism. And here I am again. Putting myself in difficulties. And enjoying wrapping my old misery in my gift of language and sending it where it belongs - out on its own. My wife encourages me to keep going but I know she will not love me any less if I stop. All of my years of happiness with her have made a difference for both of us. Joy has returned to writing things down. It took a long time. And the time has come. But this is not what I expected to do. I'm retired.
