You write to learn who you are and ...

Glenda signing books at a book party

Anne Lamott said: You write to learn who you are and what you make of it all.

I have always been a reader. When I was a child, in summer when the bookmobile came to our house on the farm, my little sister and I were as excited as if it were Christmas.

We checked out as many books as we could carry in our small arms, and then we spent the rest of our days reading. My favorite books were about horses like Walter Farley's Black Stallion and Black Stallion Returns, until I was a teenager. Then I read Little Women, The Yearling, Atlas Shrugged, and many more. My favorites were historical novels. I liked books about interesting characters and relationships. I still do. And I like history. 

I began writing when I was in elementary school. I found it to be fun to write out my fantasies, my dreams, and to express my thoughts and feelings about my own life. 

I am grateful that I found this passion to write. In many ways, writing was therapy in dark times, a joy in happy times, and because I write, I am never bored or feel I have nothing to do. 

Writing has opened doors for me more than once.

When I first moved to the mountains, I interviewed artists, both visual and literary, and submitted the articles to the Clay County Progress, the local newspaper. I made friends and found an audience for my writing.

As publicity chair for the NCWN-West writers, I interviewed members and wrote articles for publication in several local papers. I began two blogs, one for NCWN-West and one personal. I tried to write a post for those sites at least once a day. 

As life became too full to write a daily post on the blogs, I continued to do as much as I could.

I became a poet soon after settling in Hayesville, NC. I studied with some outstanding poets who taught at the John C. Campbell Folk School. I submitted my poems to literary magazines as well as slick magazines found on a rack in the drug store. I published in a magazine for those with health difficulties. 

Every poem I wrote gave me more insight into the person I had become. Yes, Anne Lamott, I have learned from writing poems that I am a unique and deeply thoughtful person. In my creative nonfiction writing, I learn more and more about my life and how I came to be who I am now. 

With age, we gain wisdom, and by writing, we realize our wisdom and our value to others and to this complicated world.