Wrote First Short Story About My Life

I wrote the first of a series of short stories about my life this morning. I did it freestyle by hand lying on my bed, while the kids were asleep, and my husband was out running. In this relaxed state, I can hear the words flow out of me and I capture them on paper. The next round is to type it up and edit it. And then share it with others to undergo a series of revisions, revisions, revisions.

I'll decide what to do with them once I have them all or mostly completed. I'm leaning towards self publishing to a book which I could design myself, or posting them on my blog if I get desperate. I'm writing my life in different chapters the way I see it, or saw it at the time, and my reconciliation of the events that happened. I've been haunted by these stories for years if not most of my adult life. It's like they want to be written  and they show up all the time clouding my head while I'm cooking, driving, breathing. So far, I've written these stories mostly in my head, when I get an idea or a new phrase comes to me, I add it to my mental memory. For years, I would think but what are people going to think? I hadn't even written about them yet and I'm already in anguish over what the people I know, the ones I call friends and family, would think.

For the last few years, I had been religiously journaling, or what Julia Cameron calls doing my Morning Pages which consists of writing three full pages every morning upon waking. I filled three 1 inch hard bounded journal books. Writing three pages daily about the current on goings of my life helped my memory immensely. I wrote about my anticipation toward events. Then I wrote to remember moments and events. I posted the date and time on each entry so I was no longer completely lost as to what the date was. It gave me the discipline for years to get up every morning at 5 am to write. It was a great source to vent out any frustrations. Fast forward two years later though, and my husband began to ask what I was also beginning to ask myself more often. Where am I going with all of this? I knew I wanted a way to move forward but I didn't know how. I realized that I could spend the rest of my life time pouring my thoughts into those journals with no end or recognition in sight. Shortly, well maybe not time-wise, but definitely event-wise because nothing much had happened since then, I got a blog. Then by the click of one mouse, I learned about an Open Mic Night, and from that, about a coffee house.  I went to writing workshops, and Open Mic Nights. I fell in love with the community of  writers, poets, and musicians who dare to spill their souls. And then, I opened myself up to my new creative friend, Lisa from work. In the months that I've known her, I've eaten more new types of food, Persian, Indian, Thai.than I have in my life time. We laugh that we are eating our way through the city. She has a contagious zest for food, music, and life and it's rubbing off on me. All this was great momentum to get me started on my first pages towards something I've always wanted to do but never made any attempts.

I've gotten to the point where I don't care (as much) any more.It's harder not to write and to feel like a coward. I hide behind an alias. I know this first piece is still choppy but it has the potential to be at least decent.