Hi friends. This morning I was thinking about this artist I knew when I was younger and just starting out in the creative world. He was about fifteen years older than me, miles ahead in the development of his voice, so I looked up to him. He was a friend’s boyfriend, so I was more of a friend of a friend to him, but I suppose I felt I knew him better than I did because she would talk about their relationship with me.
Coincindentally, I was just thinking about the first time I realized I wanted to write, and that was when I was in the first grade. My father had come home with presents from Dollar Bill's, and mine had been a set of magic markers, as usual. But I saw him holding a day per page journal, one obviously meant for a grown up man, it was brown pleather and very serious and manly-looking. But I claimed it, much to my dad's surprise. I only just realized as I recalled that moment that he had given in because didn't have the heart to deny it to me when I was so excited to think he'd bought it for me.
Anyway, I had this journal, but I didn't know what to write in it -- I was only six or seven years old and hadn't done much with my life yet. But I had this feeling that once I did begin to write about my life it would take on some kind of meaning that it didn't have when unwritten. This much I was sure of. So, I forced myself to write something, anything.
I only used that journal twice before my mother's invasion of my privacy made my home an unsafe place to write, and gave up on studying writing and literature seriously because my father's disdain of "loser English Majors" led him to refuse to let me study at Stonybrook even when I was accepted. Instead of writing, I read voraciously all my life, especially after getting an after-school job at the local library. But because of my parents' middle class ideas about who gets to write and who doesn't, I went into art, instead, rather half-heartedly. I wouldn't seriously try to write again until I was about 36.
I see someone has mentioned Joe Frank here: I used to listen to his show on Sunday nights, and followed him on Facebook. He was the first writer to encourage me to write, after a comment I posted in response to a post on his Facebook page led him to DM me, telling me I wrote well, and should write more. To be told by a writer that you can write, that you should write, is so important to helping you realize it's not just something you do even though everything and everyone else is telling you otherwise.
Thank you, that's so encouraging! Likewise, you're an inspiration to me, and I'm grateful for how much you give us on this newsletter and the check-ins. It's so important to me now that I'm in a sort of exile (taking care of my mom in her house), far from my peers and the fellow creative women I was used to seeing every day a hundred miles away where I used to live. Joe Frank was a guilty pleasure on Sunday nights -- he was a lovely, simultaneously outrageous and vulnerable man, a slightly psychedelic imagination, wonderful with words and images, and his show was a weekly escape for me. It was a great way to end the week and get ready for Monday at the ole day job.
My little brother died in a car crash when he was 23, I was 26. I wrote a poem straight from my heart at that dark time. When I was packing up boxes to move recently - having done a writing course and four drafts of a novel - I found that poem, it reminded me that I was a writer even then but didn't know it.. finding the poem was sad but also a beautiful moment of rememberance.
you know what jaimi it's weird, he was 23 when he died and it was 23 years ago this year, Im doing some writing with some of the bits and bobs in it - sort of stream of consciousness type thing. I actually just cant stop writing! Im threading in other stuff . My writing group said it was sort of a woman behaving badly - its in the first person. Going to pick another of your books today from Margate book shop that I ordered HAPPY WRITING x
In HS senior year I read Luigi Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Author and then I saw it performed and my mind clung to the idea that there are beings floating around the universe looking for a writer to tell their stories. I knew the someday I would be that writer. However, other passions took me down other paths and then finally in my early 30’s I started my writing. That was decades ago and finally the characters found me. Hopefully, I’m doing them justice with my novel in progress.
My grandparents gave me this children’s version of The Phantom of the Opera when I was little—it’s the first book I remember really loving. And the thing is, it was scary for a children’s book! It kept in some really dark parts of the original novel, like the *torture chambers* he builds below the opera. That was it for me, though. Spooky for life.
The surreal, dark, hyperliterate radio broadcasts of Joe Frank were carried by the NPR affiliate near my hometown in Western North Carolina on Sunday nights. They thoroughly changed my life.
Coincindentally, I was just thinking about the first time I realized I wanted to write, and that was when I was in the first grade. My father had come home with presents from Dollar Bill's, and mine had been a set of magic markers, as usual. But I saw him holding a day per page journal, one obviously meant for a grown up man, it was brown pleather and very serious and manly-looking. But I claimed it, much to my dad's surprise. I only just realized as I recalled that moment that he had given in because didn't have the heart to deny it to me when I was so excited to think he'd bought it for me.
Anyway, I had this journal, but I didn't know what to write in it -- I was only six or seven years old and hadn't done much with my life yet. But I had this feeling that once I did begin to write about my life it would take on some kind of meaning that it didn't have when unwritten. This much I was sure of. So, I forced myself to write something, anything.
I only used that journal twice before my mother's invasion of my privacy made my home an unsafe place to write, and gave up on studying writing and literature seriously because my father's disdain of "loser English Majors" led him to refuse to let me study at Stonybrook even when I was accepted. Instead of writing, I read voraciously all my life, especially after getting an after-school job at the local library. But because of my parents' middle class ideas about who gets to write and who doesn't, I went into art, instead, rather half-heartedly. I wouldn't seriously try to write again until I was about 36.
I see someone has mentioned Joe Frank here: I used to listen to his show on Sunday nights, and followed him on Facebook. He was the first writer to encourage me to write, after a comment I posted in response to a post on his Facebook page led him to DM me, telling me I wrote well, and should write more. To be told by a writer that you can write, that you should write, is so important to helping you realize it's not just something you do even though everything and everyone else is telling you otherwise.
I'm glad you're doing it now. I love your voice so much. Also I have never listened to Joe Frank!
Thank you, that's so encouraging! Likewise, you're an inspiration to me, and I'm grateful for how much you give us on this newsletter and the check-ins. It's so important to me now that I'm in a sort of exile (taking care of my mom in her house), far from my peers and the fellow creative women I was used to seeing every day a hundred miles away where I used to live. Joe Frank was a guilty pleasure on Sunday nights -- he was a lovely, simultaneously outrageous and vulnerable man, a slightly psychedelic imagination, wonderful with words and images, and his show was a weekly escape for me. It was a great way to end the week and get ready for Monday at the ole day job.
My little brother died in a car crash when he was 23, I was 26. I wrote a poem straight from my heart at that dark time. When I was packing up boxes to move recently - having done a writing course and four drafts of a novel - I found that poem, it reminded me that I was a writer even then but didn't know it.. finding the poem was sad but also a beautiful moment of rememberance.
I'm so sorry about your brother but that is a special connection. <3
you know what jaimi it's weird, he was 23 when he died and it was 23 years ago this year, Im doing some writing with some of the bits and bobs in it - sort of stream of consciousness type thing. I actually just cant stop writing! Im threading in other stuff . My writing group said it was sort of a woman behaving badly - its in the first person. Going to pick another of your books today from Margate book shop that I ordered HAPPY WRITING x
In HS senior year I read Luigi Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Author and then I saw it performed and my mind clung to the idea that there are beings floating around the universe looking for a writer to tell their stories. I knew the someday I would be that writer. However, other passions took me down other paths and then finally in my early 30’s I started my writing. That was decades ago and finally the characters found me. Hopefully, I’m doing them justice with my novel in progress.
My grandparents gave me this children’s version of The Phantom of the Opera when I was little—it’s the first book I remember really loving. And the thing is, it was scary for a children’s book! It kept in some really dark parts of the original novel, like the *torture chambers* he builds below the opera. That was it for me, though. Spooky for life.
LOVE "spooky for life" !
The surreal, dark, hyperliterate radio broadcasts of Joe Frank were carried by the NPR affiliate near my hometown in Western North Carolina on Sunday nights. They thoroughly changed my life.
Noted in another comment but I have never listened to Joe Frank! Will check out archives (if they exist).
There are full episodes for sale at http://joefrank.com and some free samples at https://soundcloud.app.goo.gl/jtzF1