New Year Walk

On my new year walk, nine days ago, I was mulling over paying $500.00 dollars for a 10-week memoir writing class through UCLA extension, and also applying to a summer writing residency in Miami, that would cost me $1,500.00.  Maybe I could take up the tutoring gig that would increase my pay for two months, and keep me teaching until 4pm, three days a week, so that I could afford to pay for my writing studies?  I was feeling like I really couldn’t afford to pay for writing classes and if I took the tutoring gig, I would come to resent it over time, and after a full day of teaching my own classroom, those extra days would wear me down and I wouldn’t even have energy to write.  I was definitely searching for an answer. 

One of my favorite book series is called the The New Human Revolution, by Daisaku Ikeda. It chronicles the spread of Nichiren Buddhism, from Japan to 192 countries.  In the introduction of volume one, Ikeda discusses the obstacles he faced in writing the series, and how he realized that the book needed to be written, he needed to write it, and if it took him his whole lifetime to do it, the effort was necessary.  I know for a fact that Daisaku Ikeda is a self-taught writer.  I’m not sure that he ever paid to go to a writing workshop.  Ikeda has written more than 50 books, in the last 50 years.  How do you teach yourself to write, and how do you write so many books, while being the President of the Soka Gakkai International, a worldwide lay Buddhist organization?

I reached the summit of Debs Park in Northeast Los Angeles, and I was looking over the city, the Pacific Ocean glistening in the background, continuing to think about how to write and publish.  I remembered that Buddhism occupies itself with the idea that we are perfectly endowed with everything that we need, to do whatever we want and to overcome any difficulty we have, in pursuit of that. I sat on the bench, under the winter sun, and challenged myself to be really honest about what I wanted to do with my writing, and then challenged myself to really believe that I could do whatever it was that I was setting out to do. 

These are the goals that I came up with.  In 2015 I want to write.  I want to learn about the craft of writing. I want to read great literature to serve as my mentor texts and I want to publish. 

I continued on my walk and realized that whatever I need to fulfill my goal, I already possess inside.  I don’t have to pay money to make it happen, which also means I don’t have to work extra hours to earn the money that I think I need to make it happen.  I can write everyday for one hour.  I don’t have to pay anyone for that.  I can pull out my 20 books on the craft of writing and that will keep me busy and learning for the whole year.  I can apply what I am reading about the craft everyday to my work.  I can read great literature everyday after school.  And as far as publishing, in my opening post on this blog, Anne Lamott says to write, just for the sake of writing.  If anything comes of it, great.  If not, it doesn’t matter.  I am writing because I have to and want to, and if I can publish along with it, I hope to be in rhythm to come across those opportunities as they arise.

After my first lesson of writing just to write, from Anne Lamott’s introduction in Bird by Bird, I came across my second lesson, which is how to write.   My books suggest writing about the thing that occupies my mind the most throughout the day.  Above all the other mundane things that occur to me, what sticks out for me? All of my posts represent the one thing that stood out for me, each of those days. 

I’ve been writing everyday, for nine days.  I am 42 years old and I finally feel like I am on a consistent path, toward my dream.