Who am I and why am I here?
Yes, a very meta title right off the bat. Sorry. I couldn’t resist. And if you get that reference, well, we should be friends.
Been thinking a lot lately about this new venture of mine, writing on Medium. I’ve gotten some wonderful positive feedback from friends and family, and even some strangers who have found me through the Medium network. That’s exciting.
I’ve only been doing this for a few weeks. And I’ve already had several people say some variation of, “You should write a book!”
(My friend Salli, whose opinion I value very much, said my writing reminded her of a John Irving novel, a comparison simultaneously incredibly flattering and utterly unimaginable. “All you need is a bear,” she said.)
Great validation. But that’s not why I’m here.
I think for my own sake, I need to consider why I’m doing this, and what I hope to get out of it. Otherwise, I’m just throwing words out into the void. And that’s not worth my time, or your time reading them.
I started my professional career as a reporter, after graduating from journalism school in the 80s. So writing was my job. I enjoyed it, but I never considered writing anything beyond the bounds of the beats I covered — mainly local government and education. Many reporters, I learned, have an unpublished novel knocking…
