When I graduated from high school, I remember all of the different conversations that circulated around us as seniors who were in the midst of one of our first big transitions—where were people headed after graduation. By that time, most of us had heard from the colleges where we’d applied and we pretty much knew where we were going to land at the end of the summer after graduation. What I hadn’t completely decided, however, was what I was going to study once I got to Castleton State College in Castleton, Vermont (now known as Castleton University). Castleton was a small public college that was only about 4 hours from where I grew up in Rhode Island. So, a good distance away without being either too close or too far away.
One of my favorite subjects in school had always been English. I loved reading and especially the opportunity to pick apart the symbolism and themes of the books we read. Even more, I always loved creative writing and had completed several different writing-related projects in my junior and senior years of high school, including a murder mystery script, Murder We Wrote, that a group of us wrote, filmed, and edited as a senior project, and several smaller writing projects. Writing and creativity had my heart from an early age and for much of my young life I believed I would follow that path when it came time for college.
That is not how my college years shaped up, however. Because my parents were supporting me and paying for most of my college tuition, they offered a different path. They wanted me to travel a more practical track into my future; what they hoped for was a business degree, but what we finally compromised around was a journalism degree. Journalism provided me a writing focus, the thing I wanted, that had a marketable future, what my parents wanted.
Eventually, after two years as a newspaper reporter followed by a year at as a litigation paralegal (because for a long time I also thought I wanted to be a lawyer and even went so far as to take the LSATs), I decided to change my future by shifting onto the path I had always pictured when I was in my teens. I did a bit of research, found the creative writing program I wanted to attend, applied, and was accepted. With zero hesitation, I packed up my belongings in Connecticut and headed to Boston and Emerson College. What I wanted more than anything from this new adventure was the habit and accountability I hadn’t been able to create around my writing.
At this point in my life, I will admit paying the oodles of dollars for an MFA in Creative Writing isn’t necessarily what I would do again, I am grateful for the infusion of new life it breathed into my writing and creativity. However, I completed the first draft (and even a partial revision) of my first-ever young adult novel, completed several short plays, and developed a habit around writing that has pretty much stuck with me with only some minor waning moments through the years. A daily writing habit and a good writing group are perhaps two components the writers I follow or whose books I’ve read talk about most. In fact, it was mentioned even today as I listened to the audio book, Wild and Precious: A Celebration of Mary Oliver. In the book’s closing, one of the participants talks about Mary Oliver’s insistence that a writer needs an unyielding daily writing habit.
As I contemplated those words and what I believe as a deeply-important writing truth, I realized that my girls have unknowingly gifted me a daily writing habit after a period of waning in my writing life. Not only am I daily inspired by their creative pursuits with their art and storytelling, but I am daily convicted by their commitment to creativity and writing. Even more, they have prompted me to show up each day for my writing, for this blog, for myself, and for my words. What began as a challenge—to find 365 reasons why I love these two remarkable young women—has turned into an unyielding daily writing habit.
Sure, there are some days when I stumble and miss a post and write two the following day. But this blog has not only encouraged me to seek out and share the reasons why I love my teenagers and to remind myself of all the ways love is something we get to choose each day, this blog has shaken the rust off my writing habit. Sitting down at this keyboard each day has worked out my writer’s mind and provided creativity a place within me to come and roost again. I love that my girls have helped me rediscover this habit and that they make this process one I look forward to. They have provided me the write time in several ways, and unlike my MFA, that is priceless to me.