About

It’s none of their business that you have to learn to write. Let them think you were born that way.

– Ernest Hemingway

If you’ve been following me on my other blog, Vintage Book Fairy, you will find that Slow Writer takes a very different approach. This blog is much more personal. I will mostly be writing about experiences from which I have hopefully learned, and have yet to learn, over a half-century. God, that sounds like an awfully long time.

I will be doing all that with the aim of improving my writing. I’m returning to study the craft, this time with a new partner, multiple sclerosis. This new partner will challenge me. I’ll be writing about writing as I’m learning it all over again. I hope things I pick up on, try on, and stumble on will help anyone else that is also on the path to improving their writing.

I may write about my childhood; not sure yet, maybe in the form of short stories or essays. I used to be a private person. I’d much rather talk about you then me. But when the house is on fire, and you want to stay alive, you are forced to run out, even if only in your skivvies. So I’ve been told.

I’d like to explore some of my interests, like: education and literacy; interesting people, places and events; and, humor — because without it, this blog and I would become depressed.

As for this partner…I will be including my multiple sclerosis in my writing. It’s a part of me now, like an added limb that can never be severed. I’m not in a wheelchair (only one third of us are), I talk fine and walk fine (for the most part). If you met me on the street you would never know. I hope to be a voice for my kind of MS — as well as for other chronic illnesses of the invisible kind.

In the end, it’s not really about me. Everyone has struggles and worries and loss and laughter. I only hope someone can learn from mine – including me.