I worry that I'm becoming one of those people who only writes anything meaningful when it's couched in fiction or poetry. I keep thinking I should blog about something important, and I do from time to time on PaganSquare, but when I approach writing for my own blog I frequently back away. I thought about writing on the Charlie Hebdo tragedy two weeks ago, but then I realized it would be foolish to wade into that awful conversation any more than I already had. May the dead rest in peace, and may the living hold them in cherished memory.
There's a thing happening on the Internet; a social leveling I've only previously encountered in meatspace. Ten years ago, I kept a blog about All The Things, written from my tar-covered mobile home in Maine. Nobody read it but my husband, and perhaps that's the reason why I was so free with my thoughts. Now I'm well-connected, and I find that I hold my truths more closely to my chest than I once did. I keep trying to write around them, to find things to say that don't offend, but what comes from me then is platitude, drivel, meaningless. And so I retreat to fiction and poetry, where truth is made palatable by the pretty lies around it.
Still, there comes a time for plain truths, and here are a few of mine:
I'm thinking about serializing Twilight of the World Sea People, and it scares me. In spite of the improved status of indie writers in the literary community, there are still so many people in traditonal publishing who view them as people who cannot write to standard and/or failed professionals. But I've been traditionally published and intend to continue pursuing that career track. I've also been nominated for industry awards, and my work has been positively reviewed. The professional writer who mentored TWSP loved it, believed in it and still believes in it even though her agent wouldn't offer it representation because it was 'too innovative'. Yes, it's outside the boilerplate, bloody long, dense and a little didactic. It's also a good book at a bad time in publishing, and I've sent it everywhere I care to. So while I recognize that I can't let it gather dust in a drawer, I don't want for my self-publishing endeavors to close traditional publishing doors because of a residual industry bias against indie writers.
I'm not presently pursuing my study of the Scottish Gaelic language, and the choice is deliberate, not a matter of time constraints. I don't know when or if that will change. That's all I'm willing to say about the matter unless I know you well, and you ask. But if I know you well, you don't need to ask. Icelandic, anyone?
I'm more Pagan now than I've ever been in the 26 years I've walked this path; more convinced that my vegan lifestyle is an outgrowth of my spirituality, more committed to my local community of fellow Pagans and their families, more determined to be of service to the spiritual organization I've belonged to for the last two decades. Speaking of that, I'm presently taking the final steps to become a mentor in the OBOD tradition, and I'm so grateful to have that opportunity. The Order is a wise and stable mystery school, and I hope that my small efforts help to sustain it.
Well, that was cathartic. Now maybe I can blog about All The Things a little more comfortably. I'm not promising a deluge of hand-wringing, navel-gazing Ceallaigh trivia (a prospect more appalling for me than it is for you, I promise), but I want to discuss my literary trepidation from time to time, and my present estrangement from Gaelic, and my spiritual pathworking without worrying what All The People might think. Leveling is the pastime of small minds, and I'm tired of bending down to them.