Writer

Today is the day we return to civilization. Not the civilization of man but that of my personal space. The civilization of my home.

My Mother and I, the ‘we’ in this equation, are heading home after two days in Phoenix. I accompanied my Mom to the Tuscon Festival Of Books where she was doing a book signing in one of the many booths. Her books, all 3, were self published and the publishing house or company (whatever it’s called) was actively promoting certain authors by supporting them at the festival and assisting with promotion. She was allotted a time, and a tent to sign at, and even had an assistant calling out to passersby to drop in and get a free book.

It was an interesting experience for me and I’m sure a great one for her. She commented many times how the event was something totally out of her comfort zone and something she would likely not attempt on her own. Thus my attendance, in addition to being a support of course.

The festival, at least our part of it, is complete and we are now on our way home. While I’m happy to heading back I am also disappointed we didn’t have more time there. Phoenix, Tuscon, and surrounding area is beautiful and while the visuals of it are much different than our home in British Columbia it is stunning nonetheless.

It was unfortunate too that the brief stay did not allow me to get out and photograph the Arizona beauty, and due to the uncommon rains that occurred during our stay the Sonoma desert was beginning to bloom. I was told by our hosts the resulting spring blossom of desert wild flowers was spectacular and that thought alone is inspiring my return.

We are in flight as of this writing, likely to have landed at the time of posting. There are no onboard electronics of course, writing is acceptable but transmission is not.

I feel somewhat trapped in my seat as I frequently do on planes. I’m seated in the center position between my mom on the aisle and a gentleman by the window. He is spread out somewhat with his arm partially in my seat, his apparent lack of concern is annoying but being that I’m a such a soft touch I fail to comment. He is after all a senior and I’m Canadian. We often won’t say sh** if our mouth was full of it. My size is as much the issue as anything, airplane seats aren’t meant for 6′ 200 pound adults. (Ok, 210 pound adults)

In front of us is a group of 20 somethings, loud but not too, drinking and playing cards. While the noise is a bit distracting I’m as much envious as annoyed. I only wish that group social activity was something that came easily to me. Never did, likely never will.

So we’ll be landing shortly. We will collect our bags and locate my car, moving onto the next phase of our journey. Tonight we stay with my brother and tomorrow Mom will go to visit her sister while I travel to stay with my daughter and family. Only after that will my return to civilization be complete.

The title for this post is a mis-quote by a chap I used to work with, we called them Tommyisms and there were a few. This one is a cross between “Wake up and smell the coffee” and “Stop and smell the roses” and it came to mind after reading a post by RCGale called “Writers seem to be writing about the things they feel they ought to be writing about, and not the things that obsess them”. The post resonated with me because that particular challenge is one I currently face and struggle with almost every time I post. It seems to be so prevalent in my blogging life I’ve posted about it before.

The original intent for me was to record what I was thinking and feeling on any given day and somehow make some sense of it. By journalling I wanted to provide something to others, to show readers (if there were any) that they were not alone, there was at least one other person out there who thought the same as them or was experiencing the same or similar things. Somehow, in some subtle way, it morphed into being more about the writing and less about the “why”.

I still have the challenges and I have taken Ross’s post as reminder that the writing should be from “the heart”, with the purpose of expressing ones thoughts and feelings, and not for the sole reason to collect readership and in many cases increase sales. That’s not to say that books written for that purpose are somehow wrong or mis-guided, the author need only be clear in their own mind what their intent is.

So in order to accommodate both purposes (because I’m all about pleasing everyone) I will try to remember my original goal and write from my gut, but do it in a pleasing and palatable way that makes it a “good read”. After all, if it’s not easy to read and enjoyable what’s the point, right? Please let me know what you think.