A few years ago I facilitated a non-fiction book club for seniors at the public library in Edmonton. The little group brought me great joy - not because I love non-fiction - on the contrary, I mostly read fiction - but because I so enjoyed the members of my group. Saul, Gerry, and Louise never failed to show up. We bonded over tea and scones once a month, and everyone got a say in what books we chose to do. Overall, we were the smallest book club ever, and I didn't mind that one bit. When we moved from Edmonton, the tiny book club is one of the things I knew I would miss.
"What does this have to do with writing?" you ask.
Well, it's just that I was thinking of one of the books - Riding with Rilke - and I remembered how Ted Bishop described the notion of writing in his helmet. When he was on the road, he'd be writing in his head - and it was always so good. Perfect, really. But later trying to write it out of his helmet - the moment was gone.
This has been happening to me a lot lately. Whether I'm on a walk, driving downtown, or in a yoga class - my mind is still writing (I'm not very good in the yoga class, obviously). I wonder if this 'writing in my helmet' means that I truly 'think' like a writer. If I can indeed tell people, "I'm a writer; I write." So what if I'm not published yet? That is just a little technicality -after all, every writer was unpublished at some point in their lives, right?
