I wrote ‘This Writer’s World’ as a guest post for The Writer’s Bureau in February, 2013.
This writer’s world is unlike any other where I’ve ever lived. I’ve moved many times over the years, twice between the UK and America, and each move meant leaving behind one world, settled within my circle of family and friends, only to enter a strange, new world as an unknown, rootless and friendless, to begin again.
During this constant shifting between two hemispheres, moments of great joy took place, such as the birth of each of my three children. This indescribable joy burst briefly against a backdrop of disappointments, hardship and loss as the years went by – loss of homes, loss of friends, loss of life.
So what of this writer’s world that I now inhabit? It is lonely and intense, yet it shuts out all else like a comfortable, warm blanket keeping out the chill. Distractions of any kind while I type madly away – housework; shopping; cats that need feeding; answering the phone; – are intruders, resented and therefore, ignored. Except for the cats: they are ignored for only so long.
The paradox of my lonely existence in this new writer’s world is that really, I am a sociable being. I enjoy meeting friends for coffee and ‘doing’ lunch now and then but now, if I don’t see a day in the diary free of commitments I panic, as it means I have to put my writing on hold until later.
As a student of the Writer’s Bureau winding my way through the Comprehensive Writing Course, it is one thing to put time aside to work on my assignments, but now I have started a blog and it is threatening to become all-consuming. Goodness, if I’m like this now, what will I be like if I ever do write ‘that book’? Even so, I relish it. Is it an obsession? Maybe.
In my brave, new world I have discovered that as I write about the things that have happened in the past, I am finding a new contentment in the present. Perhaps even a tentative confidence for the future? My loneliness and anxiety collides with my new-found sense of accomplishment and fulfilment, and propels me on as I write about ‘what I know’.
I realise that no experience is ever wasted, even if just to encourage one other person. I am not an alien in this writer’s world and I don’t have to carry a passport. I am a citizen with full birth rights and I belong.
I just wish I had moved here a long time ago.
A View From My Summerhouse 
Welcome to the neighbourhood (I don’t have a passport either!).
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Thanks so much willowmarie for your lovely welcome 🙂
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Hello Sherri, just saying hello and letting you know I’m enjoying my first read of your blog. I’ve wandered over from ‘How The Cookie Crumbles’ on the sayso of ‘Let’s Cut The Crap’ I also enjoy a deepening contentment with my current life after writing about my past. Congratulations on the publications of your poems.
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Hello Christine, how lovely to meet you and thank you so much for taking the time to read several of my posts and to leave your lovely comment here and also for your very kind words about my poems. So kind of you. Thanks too for letting me know that you came over from Tess’s blog, how nice of her to say that! It’s so wonderful to know that you are in a more contented place now. This is where writing about our past is so healing and freeing isn’t it? I look forward to coming to your blog too so that I can read more about your writing and your story. See you soon – Sherri 🙂
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Ahh, Tess, I knew someone would know her name, but I couldn’t quite pin it down on her blog! 😀
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Glad to help 😀
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What a lovely post Sherri, I totally get where you are coming from. At the moment I’ve left my cosy writing nest and been out there working in the real world! The job is only temporary, and soon I will be back home devoting time to writing again. I think I will miss the companionship of work, and sadly I have no cats to keep me company. Perhaps another job with less hours (this one was a bit too much,) might be a good idea after I have finished editing my book! That is my goal for 2016, editing it (I now have a critique of my book,) and then self publishing, quite a task, still have a long way to go. Writing is not an easy endeavour, it is challenging, and at times dispiriting, but if it is in your heart you just have to keep on going…
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Hi Marje, how lovely to read your message, thank you so much. I am so glad you will soon have more time to return to your cosy writing nest and edit your book 🙂 After that, I hope that you find just the right job. My goals are the same as yours, this is the year! It can be lonely and isolating writing from home, but blogging helps greatly with that I find. And yes, it is certainly challenging. We will do this, we have to! This Writer’s World is where we exist and live and breathe and where we can support one another 🙂
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Yes definitively, we will have to keep encouraging and supporting each other and finding fun photos to share when we are in need of a much needed chuckle!!
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For sure Marje, for sure! Have a wonderful weekend and see you soon 🙂 xx
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