Know Jack #465 Why Writing

I’ve been asked a lot of questions about writing and being an author. “Where do you get your ideas?” is the most frequent one I’m asked. Of course, that one has no single answer. There is no “idea” well where a writer can go and draw a bucket of cool ideas. At least not for this author. Ideas come from everywhere, everything, and everybody.

I think the one question that I’ve never been asked is why at sixty-five, and after three careers, did I choose writing. I’m not a writing prodigy, one of those who have been writing stories since they learned to write. I did tell tall tales to my few friends in grade school and had the fanciful notion of being a poet in high school. My poetry, while actually written down, was terrible and did not attract girls as I hoped.

I admit to a vivid imagination. I let it take me away to all sorts of places before the first hint that I might want to write them down came in my sophomore year in college. That was 1984. Coincidence? Maybe. More to the point, I’m a late starter. I was thirty years old with four kids that year. It took another twenty-one years to finish my first book.

What took so long? An anticipated twenty years in the military was cut short by a combination of promotions and a call to the ministry. An extreme dislike of poverty without having taken a vow led me to the desire to do the practical aspects of hospice. I became a nurse. The only time over the twenty-five years or so after that I did hospice work twice. Once as a student, I was asked by my instructor to talk a doctor into letting a patient go home to die. The other time was caring for my father in his last days.

Had I not been sidelined by back surgery I may never have left the Emergency Room. I couldn’t bear the thought of working in an office away from dropping nasogastric tubes, battling rolling veins, and running to codes. I retired and having few other skills told myself it was time to engage in my pipedream—writing.

As Bob Dylan put it, “I got a head full of ideas that are drivin’ me insane”. I figured why not write them down and sell them? I was always the only one who never cared how much money my writing wouldn’t make. If somebody read it, I was happy. I’ve grown as a writer since then and now I want people to buy my stuff before they read it. That part will always be a work in progress, so I keep on writing. Although I can’t help but wonder if as dementia takes over will my ideas get better?