Something Wonderful to Write About

It’s funny how quickly priorities can change.

I’ve been a writer my entire life. When I was a little girl, my mother used to send me and my brother to our grandmother’s house outside of Cleveland for the summer. It was a much anticipated trip, as going away to grandma’s was like going away to another world–and that’s not much of a stretch if you compare Los Angeles to a tiny suburb in Ohio.

One year, the year I decided to write the great American Novel (I must have been all of 9 or 10 years old) I hauled my ancient typewriter with me. It was heavy as all get-out; an all metal monstrosity, painted cerulean blue, that I loved with all my heart. That typewriter, for me, meant creative freedom. I learned to type so that my ideas wouldn’t be hindered by the speed of my pen; I could type almost as fast as I could think, and never again would the perfect line of dialog escape me because my  brain hand run off to bigger and better things while my fingers struggled to keep apace. As strange as it may sound, I loved that typewriter as much as any little girl loved her dolls or imaginary ponies.

That I brought my typewriter with me on my annual trip to Mecca is strange enough. But that action really symbolizes who I am and who I have always been. I never took watercolor paints with me. I never toted crayons, so much more portable, or drawing paper or even pencils. My outlet of choice was writing, and therefore I needed my typewriter.

How, then, did twenty years pass and lead me astray into graphic design? How did that girl who loved writing so much she carried a 20 pound typewriter halfway across the country on summer vacation turn into a woman who, in the course of a workday, might never touch a keyboard in favor of her drawing tablet?

I think the answer lies in one of my core beliefs: I believe the universe gives me interests so that I have something to write about.

Now don’t get me wrong: I enjoy writing fiction. I even love it. But I’m rather lousy at it. I get too caught up in things that don’t matter and at character development I am a hopeless mess. I’m an adequate storyteller, and when I relay events that more or less happened (I am an embellisher, but what writer isn’t?) I can do that with a certain amount of flair and sophistication, but when it comes to making something up from scratch? Well, it comes off that way–self-conscious, trying too hard.

But my real passion and talent is non-fiction. It’s why I performed so well in college, to be honest. I outperformed my peers not because I was smarter or because I had more information then they did. It was because I could write my way into the sweet spot in my professor’s mind every time. It was almost unfair the advantage I had with that single skill.

But in order to write compelling nonfiction, there has to be passion behind it. You have to do more than know your subject, you have to live it. You have to breathe it in, interpret it, internalize it, and breathe it out as something new, changed, different. And that’s what I did with religion and philosophy, and it’s what I do now with design.

I was gifted with a love for design because it gives me something wonderful to write about.

I bring all this up because someone stumbled upon this blog recently and emailed me to say that he enjoyed my writing, and though I didn’t appear to have interest in this blog anymore, he hoped I would return.

I was deeply ashamed, to be honest. And I remain deeply ashamed. I should not have so long neglected this space, no matter how busy I’ve become.

So I will write about design. And I will write about work and life and whatever else needs to be written about. This space needs to be filled.

The prodigal writer returns.

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