Roads to Joy

Oh no! The big day came and went and I was out among the stars! But I console myself with the realisation that, in some small way I’m doing my bit for the day, if only because yesterday I finished Chapter Nine of my emerging novel. There’s one more chapter to go and then it will be a book.

Well, I say a book. It’ll be a first draft, ready for its beta readers to dig deep into, to sneer or applaud in equal measure. What has my fevered mind dredged up this time? I can say, pretty much hand-on-heart, that this book will be the last one in the Biome NE47 series, the conclusion of the trilogy. I hope that the fruition will be a satisfying finish to the premise with which I started the series, way back in the spring of 2018.

Reading a book is one thing, and as this year’s World Book Day theme has it, ‘You are a reader!’ Writing, however, is quite another. Will there be a World Writer’s Day sometime in the future, when the admonition to all wordy aspirants will be: You are a writer!? Say, that’s a perfect place for an interrobang, but the double punctuation does just as well, I think.

Anyway, it feels overwhelmingly pretentious to proclaim oneself a writer. But something inside compels the conceit. I’d like to think it’s a humble service to a creative sensibility, and perhaps that’s a primary motivation, though it might just be that I crave fame and fortune, who knows?

Fame and fortune, however, have never come my way, but still the writing continues. I presumed to write a new poem, as a man, to try to participate in this month’s themed VisualVerse.org anthology. The theme is ‘womxn’ which I understand is a conscious nod to the LGBTQi community in this month that features International Women’s Day. I’ve celebrated, in the past, the feminine side of my nature, but I’d not be at all surprised to have my poetic foray ignored this month; though it was heartfelt I’m not convinced that my effort does anything to ‘Break the Bias.’

Perhaps, however, the mere act of trying to understand, of being curious, is a step along the right road? Just like putting one word after another is a small step along the way to a complete book.

The pursuit of acquiring words upon words, of building a set of meaningful thoughts that might conspire to elicit a contemplative mood from the reader, what I think of as the ‘ahhhh’ moment, is probably more than enough joy for anyone to aspire to.

And maybe, maybe not something to be ashamed of, either. So yes, yes, I am a writer. Even that realisation sends a tiny shiver down my back.