refining the lens

So, right. Since BlogHer, I've been thinking a lot about writing. Less worried about HOW to write, more worried about WHAT to write. Always been worried about the STORY. Always been worried about the PITCH. I am way way too self-aware about my writing. I had a great thing happen at BlogHer: a smart, sassy, well-meaning soul asked me in the middle of the Sparklecorn Extravaganza, "When you write, who do you write for?" and I was mildly aggravated. This was a deep (I thought) existential question and I couldn't be expected to answer it when Prince was exhorting me to Go Crazy and there was a gigantic unicorn cake winking at me over my left shoulder.

But. It was an excellent question, from someone who was trying to help me jumpstart things a little.

People at my meetings talk often about how we are "egomaniacs with inferiority complexes." That is me to a T, people. I could never get journal-writing off the ground in my adolescence because I pictured the media dying of boredom when they ultimately got hold of them after I became world-famous (for what I did not yet know) I would always do a lot of PLANNING but never a lot of WRITING.

The Saturday of BlogHer, my beloved cousin and I went out for dinner and I was telling her a wacky story about me in my 20s, and my cousin shook her head and smiled, saying, "you HAVE to start writing some of this shit down..."

So I feel like a novice artist doing still lifes of apples and wine bottles. Maybe a little dull, but important in refining one's talent and getting comfortable with the craft.

Belated answer to the Sparklecorn question, Miss K, is that I write for Me, and I'm gonna stop worrying about You, and it's all good. You've helped me more than you know.