Friday Speak Out!: Journal Journey , guest post by Karen Turk

Ever since Miss Machin told me I was imaginative after reading my short story in grade 11 I have imagined that I am a writer. But that story was a dream I had written out as I dreamed it (my dreams come fully edited)--so I felt like I had cheated because it was so easy. Still, I decided to be a Writer.

At college, moody and broody, I sat under oak trees and wrote in my journal, carried leather or Indian mirrored cotton bags across my body stuffed with books and coloured pens and pretty cigarette packs.

I took poetry classes and loved them and wrote poems freely and easily.

In university I sometimes commuted into the city by train, gazing out the window, writing poems as the scenery rushed by. I was a Poet, too.

In the big city, I wore Birkenstocks and jeans and went to used bookstores and drank university tea in Styrofoam cups while people-watching and peeking at boys from behind Ali MacGraw hair.

I became infatuated with a handsome and quirky student poet in our Real-Poet-led poetry class and we dreamed of living a literary life together in England. I wore Annie Hall blazers and braided my hair so it would be wavy as I thought a free-spirited Writer’s Hair should be. But he was moody and broody so I moved on.

I wrote more poetry and in journals then married and had two sons. I anxiously journaled through my divorce and singlehood and falling in love again and remarrying. When my nest emptied I cried in my journal. When I stopped crying, I decided that NOW I would write my novel. Then my father died and my mother became ill and I cried some more.

The novel waited patiently.

Just when I decided to begin my novel...I got my first dog and fell in love with him!! Now I’m too busy walking and cuddling and playing with him to write except in my journal. If I was going to write a Novel, nothing would have stopped me. So I have declared myself to be Not A Writer, hoping one day to prove myself wrong.

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Karen Turk is a Library Technician and writer, living in Southern Ontario with her husband and dog.
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Would you like to participate in Friday "Speak Out!"? Email your short posts (under 500 words) about women and writing to: marcia[at]wow-womenonwriting[dot]com for consideration. We look forward to hearing from you!
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