Poetica Magazine

I sit at the computer we have in our kitchen or the one in my office and I'm working on a piece, writing pretty fast.  When inspiration hits me I have to write it down or it's gone forever.  Invariably, right at that time is exactly when someone in the house will decide I'm interruptable.  Apparently, I don't look like I'm working.

What does writing look like?  Does it look like work?  In my house, sitting at a computer working looks a lot like sitting at a computer goofing off.  I could be checking email, or on eBay, or Facebook.  Just to be sure, my family members come over and, like they're frisking me, they'll take a quick glance at my screen to see what website I'm on, to see if I'm lying.  This is because writing doesn't look like work, and yet it's some of the toughest work I've ever done.

When I had my old job, my work was easy to define:  someone would hand me a file with certain tasks to perform.  I had to call people, I had to write letters; I had to review certain issues that would arise.  This made for convincing work when I brought files home - my kids knew this work had to get done.  They didn't peek at my files to make sure they were real and they never acted like maybe the work was optional.

Now my work is much more ambiguous and, yet, it's much bigger.  I'm only trying to translate the world that I see and the world inside my thoughts into something on a blank screen. I'm just trying to take that world in through my eyes and have it come out of my hands looking differently, to maybe change the way others see it; and to communicate the way I see it. That's all.  And to do this I sit at a computer and sometimes I write in a notebook.  I look off into space, I search my memory, I remember things and I remember people.  I search for the right words.  When I find them, I have to write, right then.  I can't be interrupted.  

I don't do this for fame or fortune and, even though I love it, I don't do it because it's fun.  I do it because it's important work -  that someone has to put things into words.  So I write mine up and send them out there.  A day's work done.

Thanks for reading JWorld Cafe, the Poetica Magazine Blog

Linda Pressman, Blog Editor