My ideal occupation

Hmmm, today's 2Ps blog challenge asked the question, "Would you rather be a great musician, athlete, scientist, artist, politician, or writer?" I guess I would have to say writer. I love to write and get serious satisfaction from a well written piece. Considering I have a MA in literature and taught college English for 5 years, this answer should come as no surprise. Putting words on paper (or, now in the computer age, on screen) is liberating, and a little scary--you are taking a risk of feedback that you may not like.

I love the idea that a piece of writing can be timeless--people are still reading Beowulf in translation, the Bible etc--these were written 1000's of years ago. I am not saying that my writing could be on a par with the Bible (maybe better than Beowulf--I get shudders remembering reading that one) but the idea that my words in print could influence someone 10 years from now, let alone 100 years is a cool one. There are still people arguing about the racism in Markk Twain's Huck Finn, even though at the time, Twain was being exaggerative in order to show how stupid bigotry and racism really are. I think artists have the same effect on people. I read an article today about a guy who thinks he has ID'd the model for the Mona Lisa. And a few years ago there was hubbub in the news about a First Folio of Shakespeare's (Circa 1640) going up for auction.

In a way, my book of me has become my forum for thoughts about my life and ideals. I write intense, personal details in my book (nope, they will never be on 2Ps) because I want my daughters to understand who I am. My mother and I were never close, and she died at 52 from cancer in 1994. There are so many questions and things I wish she could tell me. Hopefully, my writing will tell others those things I wish I knew.

Writing is an extremely personal creation, much like scrapbooking. The words (or LO) the writer puts out there carries a piece of her at a moment in time. One of Shakespeare's plays was ID'd to a specific year due to the Bard including info about an eclipse in the play. Neat. A piece of historical info tossed in absentmindedly that gives us info almost 400 years after the fact.