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Finding the Courage to Do What I Love
“Do you have the courage? Do you have the courage to bring forth this work? The treasures that are hidden inside of you are hoping you will say yes!” — Jack Gilbert, as quoted in Elizabeth Gilbert’s (no relation) fine work, “Big Magic”
Rediscovering My Love
Back in 2010, I’d tapped into my love of writing again, for the first time in many years, when I took a writing workshop at the Navy Memorial on Memorial Day Weekend. The workshop was free to veterans, which I am, a disabled veteran who served in the U.S. Navy for 4 years. The workshop was geared towards writing memoirs, and had a section on interviewing, for those who wanted to help someone else with a memoir.
While we were in the interviewing part of the workshop, in to the Memorial wandered several of the original Navajo Code-Talkers from World War II. They were in town for Memorial Day, and just dropped by the Navy Memorial. A few of us in the workshop got to practice our interview skills on them, and then wrote up articles about them. I interviewed Tommy Berlin, who had a fascinating story to tell. I wrote it up and sent it in.
My article got published in the Navajo Times, then the lady who’d sponsored the workshop invited me to be a writer for the Navy Memorial’s Navy Log Blog. I could write whatever I wanted for the blog, but was also sent out on assignments to cover different related events around town and at the memorial. I did this for a couple of years, which took me back to my days on my college’s newspaper staff. I loved it!
I got to interview some of the Tuskegee Airmen, some of the guys who the show “Band of Brothers” was based on, some wounded warriors returning from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and even some former major league ballplayers who had sacrificed parts of their careers to fight in wars, most notably, Yogi Berra. It was fun, and really got my writing juices flowing again.
I wrote some articles of my own for the blog, as well. In a two-part series, I reviewed a book about the terrible fire on the USS Forrestal during the Viet Nam War, then wrote a personal account of being trapped in an engine room fire with two other sailors on my first ship, in 1974, just after the war.
As the sesquicentennial of the Civil War approached in 2011, I prepared a 4-page piece about my great grandfather, Martin Hager, who had joined a Union Army company at the beginning of the war, at age 13. Martin had survived his entire 3 year enlistment, keeping a diary the whole time, which was passed down in the family, to my father, his grandson.
A Book Idea is Born
My article about Martin received a lot of positive response, including from my brother Brian, who suggested I write a book about Martin’s exploits. I got really fired up about the idea, and began to plan how I would approach Martin’s story.
I decided on a historical fiction. I would incorporate his actual story into a larger story, a fictional account to juxtapose his experience against that of a Confederate soldier who also joined at a young age, and survived the entire war. My idea included following their exploits both during the war, and after the war, tracing how their lives went once the war ended. Since Martin had lived long enough to attend the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg, where he had fought at age 16, I decided I would have his rebel counterpart also attending the anniversary.
There, they would meet up, get to know each other, and compare notes about their lives, during and after the war.
Selling the Idea
Everyone I talked to loved the idea. When I covered the GI Film Festival, which the Navy Memorial hosted later that year, I even had a book publisher express an interest in my book, and a film maker from New York told me she wanted to hear from me when I finished the book, about turning it into a film.
Now, I was really excited, gratified that everyone loved my idea so much. I got to know a couple of other Civil War book authors, and learned a lot about the need for extensive research before attempting to write such a book, and began my research in earnest.
The more I read, the more I realized how little I actually knew about my subject. I also came to another startling realization — while I liked to write, and could write well, I was not a writer. I did not have the discipline of a writer — a real writer. Writing was just a pastime, something I enjoyed doing on occasion. I just liked the turning of a phrase, the crafting of words into a coherent story, the occasional joy received when I knew I had nailed a story.
Reality Sets In
But, I had many other interests that took up most of my time. I was on several Boards of organizations I’d been involved with, I was playing around 100 games of competitive softball a year, not to mention my full-time job. I was no writer. I didn’t have time to write. Who was I kidding?
I quickly became embarrassed about all the enthusiasm I had generated about something I now knew I would never do. I stopped writing altogether. It got so bad, I even stopped writing in my journal, which was the one thing I always did, even when I wasn’t writing, otherwise. I was deeply embarrassed, and ashamed, to have passed myself off as a writer, when I really wasn’t.
A Storytelling Community
Then, a funny thing happened. I got invited to an online storyteller community (Cowbird.com), where I met storytellers from all over the world. There I discovered that I actually was a very good storyteller. The more stories I wrote, the more I discovered I had to write about. With an active and engaged audience for my stories, they just began pouring out of me.
I found myself waking up at 4 a.m. every day, so I would have a couple of hours to devote to my writing. In my first year as part of that community, I wrote and posted nearly 600 stories. In 5 years, I posted over 2,000 stories (average about 1,000 words per story). Early on, I also came to a realization — I finally am a writer.
Writing Every Day
I’d found the discipline to write every day, no matter what. I wrote random stories, and I wrote series of stories that, put together, could have been a book. I took on-line courses about writing fiction and publishing books, and learned what that actually takes. I knew I had it in me to do what it takes — but decided, that level of writing will have to wait until I retire from my day job, and can devote myself fully to that activity.
Until then, I would continue to write. This summer I got away from the daily writing, as we made a decision in July to move from where we’ve lived for 23 years to where we plan to live until we die. That took a lot of work to pull together — we moved in September, and are still getting settled into our new house. I’ve written very little over the past two months- but I’m feeling pulled back to it. A part of me has been feeling like I left the “writer me” up north. But, I wrote something yesterday, and now I’m writing something today. I think the writer in me is finally arriving here in Fredericksburg.
A big part of me is still reluctant to jump back into it. What if I’ve lost my edge? What if I can’t find anything interesting to say? That’s just bull-hockey. All I have to do is keep writing. The right words will find me here, and before I know it, I’ll be back in the groove. All I have to do it show up, and let the words come.
