I wrote a lot

As I assess what kind of writer I am today, I look back on the writing I created years and years ago. I cranked it out. In 2000, I wrote over 400 pages of text and edited at least that much. In 2004, I wrote or edited 1,000s of pages. I worked 60-80 hours per week, regularly. I also read children's and YA books as part of my job and wrote reviews. In late 2006/early 2007, I wrote a 316 page manuscript in a few months. By 2011, I was writing 3,000-4,000 words per week at least. That was my pace for years.

I might have hit the wall as I took on more administrative work in the later 20teens. Nah. I didn't hit the wall, I smashed into it and was flattened like Wile E. Coyote. I still wrote small things, though, and still do (lots of haiku). The massive production that I was used to, well, it simply ceased to be vitally important to me by 2016/2017. I hadn't broken the writing machine exactly, but OMG, I needed a rest. #carpaltunnelpain

And now I value that still and find writing, again, to be sheer joy. Flying fingers across the keyboard, cranking out thinking, change, innovation, fearlessness, vulnerability, creativity. In between then and now, I played with videos, social media, digital rhetoric, visual arts, drawing. But it always comes back to words. I wrote one of my favorite posts 16 March 2011 about what writing meant to me and how it defined me (picture above). Now I have to admit, I have Netflix and Amazon Prime and that might have had something to do with my prolific writing habits slipping just a bit. And some social media accounts. And a really satisfying job. When there was less distraction, it did give me more time to think, dig deeper, considered oddities, ponder strange connections, and reflect/synthesize. And write.

It's good to remember what I did as a writer because that really is who I am and what underlies all else. I am a writer.