During the twelve years, off-and-on, I was a student at the University of No Learning, I wrote. I wrote a lot: on average about 500 words a day, not counting correspondence, notes on my reading, etc. In my spare time I managed to complete a few thin volumes of poetry, a few articles and reviews, and a variety of general nonsense for which someone, somewhere, was willing to pay me.
Very strange idea, that, to be paid for writing. As long as I can remember, the written word has always been my preferred mode of communication. I suppose I found the idea that someone would pay for my writing to be as unusual as someone else would find the idea of being paid for talking. It was so, but still, very strange.
My academic career–and for a time, my writing–was ended when I was injured in an assault. I was left with a scrambled brain, balance and memory problems, and a constant headache for a couple years. It could have been worse: as my assailant stated in court, his goal that day was to kill someone.
Life goes on. Much of the past few years has been spent trying to recover as much of my pre-TBI functioning as is possible. I’ve had to accept that I’ll never attain my previous academic goals, but that doesn’t mean I can’t regain my previous facility in writing.
To be a successful writer, one must write. One of the purposes for this blog for is to serve as a place to write short pieces when I get stuck on other writing projects. Knowing there may be an audience will press me to write more frequently. Once I get in the habit of writing a few hundred words here, twice a week, I can work on writing more, or more frequently.