This Leads to That

Most of us, at some time in our lives, start out doing one thing and find ourselves unexpectedly led in a different direction. In my case, I could say that's been the story of my life, at least of my writing life.

Back in the 1980s, a part-time job writing law book supplements led me in a different direction than I expected. I'd been out of law school for a few years, had two young children, and thought I'd get back up to legal speed by writing about torts and no-fault auto insurance. However, after a couple of years of legal writing, I realized that I loved the writing part more than the legal subject matter. While I was pondering what to do about that, a friend mentioned a poetry workshop she'd heard about and wondered if I might be interested in joining it. I signed up immediately. Soon after, I quit my law job and began focusing seriously on writing poetry.

Among the people I met in that workshop was a woman from a neighboring town. In addition to writing poetry, she also wrote a personal essay column for her local newspaper. That sounded like a lot of fun to me. At the time, my own town had two community papers. I kept thinking that one day I'd look into the possibility of writing for one or the other. After a few years, though, one of them suddenly folded, and I realized my chances of writing a column like my friend's had just been cut in half. That mobilized me and I contacted the remaining paper. I landed a job and began writing a column entitled "Passing Thoughts." The column ran for almost three years, until the arrival of a new editor who wanted to dictate more about content than I was comfortable with.

The personal essay concept later morphed into my first blog, "Famosity," where I had total control over content, and finally I landed here, writing daily entries about all sorts of topics. Now, I wonder where this might lead. My daily entries may taper off. Or they may not. I may opt to devote more time to my breast cancer website and related projects. Or I may give up writing altogether and take up photography. The only thing I'm sure of is that this daily blog will lead me somewhere I hadn't expected to go.