#1 - Who Paid for This Wix Site and Why?

I paid for it. My name is Hannah (the type who "smiles even when she's broken inside," according to the second-most popular definition on Urban Dictionary). I shelled out $165.90 for a year's worth of this domain because I thought perhaps I might really use it, now that all that money's on the line. Plus, this website address is much cleaner-looking than the free one they offer. And it has the word "club" in it, which I'm hoping will inspire some semblance of community here in this corner of the World Wide Web.

Now that we're here together, staring and blinking, I'd better tell you about my goal. It's a fairly selfish, fairly common goal, but it's one that lots of people have been telling me is more or less necessary. And that is, to write every day.

Allow me to explain how daunting that is by saying that I am not a writer, but a Writer. There’s a far less egotistical distinction between the two than you probably think. Here it is: a writer is someone who writes, while a Writer is someone who is meant to write. (Oh dear, that’s still egotistical.) How about: writer is a job description, while Writer is an identity. (I dislike that even more.)

The point I’m trying to get across is that I don’t write. At least, not substantial, definable things that have recognizable names like poem, script, short story – or even stanza, chapter, opening paragraph. No, the things I write, when I do write, are things I can hardly bear to describe. I’ve recently begun calling them “bits” – bits of dialogue, bits of a scene or a song, bits of stage directions describing an image meant to look like a still from a movie…

All partial, you see. That’s their unifying quality. Completely incomplete. But this alone does not oust me from writer status. After all, plenty of people who fit the writerly label don’t have finished products to show for themselves. (I hope.) The thing that distinguishes me from those folks who are writers is that, even with all my bits accounted for, I do not write nearly as much as I should.

(“Should.”)

(Should!)

I avoid writing, though I think about it nearly all the time. Here, have a simile: It’s there, like a bemused little fire, crackling persistently at the back (front? center?) of my mind, and I do my darnedest to stamp it out with all the usual distractions – movies, friends, bicycles, books (books, of all things!) – but the fire goes on crackling nonetheless. Why I avoid something that comes so naturally to me is obviously due to some kind of perverse and universal fear. (Fear of failure? of disappointing? of mediocrity?) It’s all very interesting and worth exploring. However, this much is clear – I am not a writer.

That said, I think – and, I think, speak – best through writing.

I count myself as a chronic journaler (granted, these days, not as chronic as I would like). When I experience something, I almost always want to write it down. Why? There must be many reasons, but I've narrowed it down to these three:

1) for posterity's sake. I am constantly thinking about my future children and their desperate pleas for permission to read my old diaries and discover who their darling mother was at their age;

2) for my own sake. I'm an analyst through and through, and so, in an effort to learn the most I can about myself, other people, and the world – not to mention myself and other people in the world – I'm inclined to write it all down for future analysis and brooding o'er;

3) for the sake of humanity. Whoa! Eh... Well, for the sake of whichever pie slice of humanity might find comfort or solidarity in the words I write. That is the hope, always.

Any response from a reader is a gift, you know. (Even an unexpected chuckle. Even a smirk.)

What was I saying?

Ah. The little fire.

Some of my best moments come when Good Films and Good Books nudge the little fire beyond bemusement and directly into indignation. That, dear reader, is when I get to call myself a writer. It’s when the little fire’s indignation at my lack of creative output forces me to hunt for a pen and paper, or race to my laptop, to produce some spanking new, bonafide words, pronto.

Quite a thrill when that happens. I'm eternally grateful to Good Art.

But more often than not, the little fire remains bemused (can you blame it?), and I am securely nestled behind the title of Writer, which – as you may have gathered – despite its weighty capital letter, is really pretty wispy and, well, vague.

[A deep, deep breath.]

That’s why this is here. These words, behind this screen. They’re here because I’m just about fed up with being wispy and vague. I’m a tad too reproachful of the capital W.

The little fire is indignant today.

(Oh, I'm giddy!)

I'm going to post here every day, folks. Sometimes it will be like this, verbose and rambling, and other times it will be just a word or two, or a quote, or a question.

Speaking of – just to prove to you how much I've mulled this whole thing over – here's a question: Are my thoughts, my bits, my “life story” as it unfolds – is all that worth telling? (And better yet, worth posting on the World Wide Web?)

No!

And with that, if you'll have me, we’ll proceed.