When you are a writer and you get to be a certain age, the accumulation of a lifetime of experience, emotions, ideas, learning, and wisdom suddenly seems to want expression. I have written all my life, from as early as I can remember, but it was never about publishing. It was helping me to work through my inner dialogues. Sometimes until I could see my thoughts on paper, I couldn’t really understand what was behind what I thought I was feeling.

Then I spent nearly 40 years in financial industry communications, which thoroughly choked off the creative flow. I learned how to write crisply and factually. Bullet points. Sizzle. Blah, blah. That’s how I felt all the time…blah.I wrote a lot, I published a lot, and I can’t tell you anything I wrote that I really care at all about.

Today, my writing is still not about publishing, however, 2017 has been a highly productive year for me, and I’ve found that I do want to publish…more to see if I can do it than because I have a burning need to do it. Don’t take this as vain, but I don’t really care much what other people think about my work. It matters to me what I think about it. But there is a part of me that hopes others will enjoy or appreciate it, too.

I’ve been interested to see the ways many of you are preparing for your marathons. This is my first, and I may be ignorant of what really will be needed to get through it, but I haven’t wanted to prepare anything (except food and drinks). I don’t have any half-baked poems I will have at hand, I don’t have lists of wonderful words that will inspire me. I consider this a test of forcing myself to find something meaningful to say each hour and to say it in an economical way that will have impact. If I can do that, I will consider that I have succeeded, and if I can’t, I will be back next year with lists of words, half-baked poems and any other mind bombs I can find! 🙂 I hope everyone lets the words flow, without judgment. Turn off the inner critic, and have some fun! Be daring! Good luck to all of you.