Wendy the Writer

   At the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books I walked over to a booth advertising self-publishing.  When I took a flyer, the attendant asked if I was a writer.  

I answered, “Yes.”

And for the first time, I really believed it.  

I’ve been asked before, and I usually give some faltering answer of, “I like to write” or “I want to be a writer.”  This year, it was just “Yes.  I am a writer.”

A writer is a person who writes.  And I do.  Thanks to this blog, I have a self-imposed deadline of a posting a week.  My own column in cyber-space.  Thanks to this blog, I make a concerted effort to write.  And re-write.  And send out my writing.   

I used to hope to be a writer.  Someday I’d write something, someone would love it, and it would lead to some sort of writing job.  Well, I’m 35, and things didn’t work out that way.  So, I’m writing every week.  I’m submitting my writing to various publications (at least once a month).  I’m putting my writing out there because I can’t be “discovered” if I’m not writing.  And I’m getting published - an essay in L.A. Parent Magazine, an essay at DivineCaroline.com.

I’m a full-time, working mommy.  I don’t have much “free time.”  And, until I started blogging, writing was at the bottom of my daily “to-do list.”  Not any more.  Let’s face it; I’m never going to have free time - at least not until I retire.  The only thing I could do was make the time.  So, now I set writing dates for myself - an hour after-school.  A mocha and my laptop.  It’s my “Wendy time” to write.  

I write in the bathroom, because I often get ideas in the shower.  I keep a pad of paper and a pen in my purse, my car, my son’s diaper bag.  I stop and I write - a phrase that catches my attention, a snippet of conversation, a word I like, an idea that the muse has dropped into my lap.  I write them down.  Small abbreviated versions.  And later, on my writing date, I will write and develop the idea into a blog.

So, yes, I am a writer. 

And readers, thank you for reading what I write.