Member-only story
To Write With Joy
Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Process
He kept a desk in his home office, on it sat papers scratched in black and red, held down by a Smith Corona typewriter — 60’s art deco green. A pristine copy of Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style leaned against it.
“Are you a writer?” I ask.
He froze. The room swallowed all but our breath. When I was ten, I asked my Great Grandfather what the war was like — apparently an equally triggering question, and my dad whisked me away from my first faux pass. This was my second. Sadly, no one came to save me.
His eyes, with dark circles and a stay-away-from-that-shit gaze, looked over my shoulder. “I’m trying to be,” he said. “But all my stuff’s been rejected.”
Writing. Why didn’t I think of that?
I hadn’t written a piece of prose since high school literature class — my best subject. I did well enough with my short stories that I gained the attention (and uncomfortable affection) of the entire lit department. But I kept creative writing married to academia, and left it behind in adulthood. Tantalized by nostalgia and grandeur, I ignored my friend’s warning and embraced the stereotypes and paraphernalia of being a writer. I romanticized whiskey, oak desks, and evenings by the fireplace — everything except putting words to paper.
