Writing for fun versus writing for pay.

By Olivene Godfrey

While suffering through a "writer's block", I remembered these words by John W. Vandercook, " Show me an author who says he 'just loves to write' and I'll show you somebody who doesn't make a living at it." Of course we who write wouldn't be happy doing anything else. There's something inside us that drives us to put words on paper and it is satisfying work. While I'm retired and don't make a living writing now, I do feel an obligation to readers to write in this space once a week.

But, writing fun? or something to "to just love" ? Not if you are serious about it. If you confine your writing to a diary or journal, I suppose it could be fun. But, when you write for publication, it's quite a different matter, especially if you are facing onrushing deadlines as I did for so many years.

When you write for a living, you can't wait for inspiration. Most of us are doing well if we are inspired once a week. And, after we've written for years it seems as if we have written about every subject under the sun at least once, usually more than once. Then, out of the blue something comes to you, something that isn't really new, as there isn't anything that hasn't been thought of before, but we find a different angle to approach, and when we finish the piece, we're glad that we are writers. But, it wasn't fun.

John Raymond, Atlanta Journal-constitution Book Review Editor, once wrote that there are two kinds of writers, those who have talent, energy, and have something to say and who proceed to utilize all three, and those who think they have those things but have only energy. I suspect there comes a time when all writers think they are in the second group. And when we don't even have energy we really feel low. Still, we continue to write and to write and to write.

See you next time.

Random thoughts on an early spring & other topics

By Olivene Godfrey

As I write this, bright sunshine is streaming into my office windows and I am thinking of an early spring despite the famed groundhog's prediction. Last week on two separate days robins swooped down onto our front yard and feasted on the bountiful bird buffet before flying south. And, some of our trees are showing signs of budding and have son Barry and me suffering from a spring-like allergy. And, the temp outside yesterday was 60 degrees which is the same forecast for today and next few days. I pray the snows and extremely cold weather is over.

I had a pleasant surprise twice last week when the mail brought two packages from my niece, Ami, and her husband, Bobby. The first package contained a beautiful crystal swan paperweight that they sent me when I sprained my wrist. The second package was a green paperweight with a shell imprint on it. Since Ami and Bobby live in Florida, they thought the shell paperweight had a more Florida style. Both of the paperweights add beauty to my collection.

I recently bought a new outfit that I ordered from a mail order house that has pretty clothes. The shell top and jacket fit perfectly but, as usual, the pants were about a foot too long and had to be altered. What gives with clothes manufacturers anyway? Do they think all women are tall and leggy?

When I was a little girl, I loved to make pictures with a small camera my parents gave to me. As I grew older I continued to take lots of pictures, a practice that continued after my late husband, Ralph, and I married. Now I have stacks of photo albums with pictures made over the years. When Barry occasionally looks at the albums he says I must have made pictures of him every day and he is right about that. We also had Olen Mills photographs made of him over the years. I have a bunch of pictures that need to he put in albums if I ever have time.

Unfortunately, I am unable to make pictures as my hands aren't steady enough now. I have two good 35 mm cameras that I used a lot to shoot pictures for articles which I sold to newspapers. Barry has a digital camera which makes good pictures but he rarely prints them out. They look good on the large TV screen in the den but I still like to have prints to hold in my hands. So, I'm old fashioned! In the past, I made pictures of sunrises over our mountains and of the picturesque view seen from our front windows. Some of these I've had enlarged and they hang on my office walls. I've also sold some of these pictures to newspapers. Barry is a good photographer and has made some excellent pictures which he printed such as the ones that have appeared in this space.

See you next time.

Fear wears many faces

By Olivene Godfrey

If we live our lives fully, and if we live for very long, we have our share of fears and anxieties. While many of our fears are vague over unlikely dangers fear is a normal and purpose serving emotion. It is the awareness of a threatening situation.
To be afraid when one should be afraid is good sense. It serves to warn us of danger and puts us on guard. But the wrong kind of fear has the most insidious power to make us do what we ought not to do and leave undone what we ought to do.

Often we fail to recognize fear for what it is as fear wears many faces. No other emotion wears so many disguises--convincing disguises that make us time and again , treat it as something other than itself.Then, sometimes we deceive those who love us. Most of all we deceive ourselves. Fears may be disguised as courage. It often seems to be a teen-age ritual for the adolescent driver to prove his manhood by letting his peers prod him into speeding and taking risks. He acts in this manner not because he's brave. But, because his fear of seeming to be afraid is more commanding than the fear of injury. In the grip of adolescent social fears, many young persons don't dare to acknowledge fear.

Fear may be disguised as snobbishness, ambition, humility,
loyalty, self-sacrifice (that's a mean one), or a missionary zeal for a good cause. It expresses itself as a chip-on-shoulder hostility of being unappreciated, or in some cases it disguises itself as illness. Research on the subject of human fear and anxiety interfere with the ability to reason. The mental wheels may spin faster but they lose traction and thinking tends to become both sporadic and illogical.

To understand fear means there are fears and fears. Some we can live with and couldn't live without. Others so inhibit our powers or distort the expression of those powers, that to live with those fears means to live self-defeated.

See you next time.