Encore Career

Writing is my ‘encore career’, a phrase I discovered today on a Baby Boomer ‘life transitions’ site.

Applause, please, from the audience!!!!

I’ve written thousands of clinical reports…and some of them contained fabulous fiction, I’ve observed numerous times. I’ve never lied, but I have amplified the facts to convince an insurer to pay. “The end justified the means”, don’t they say (you know how I despise that word, Constant Reader- egad!)

But I realize that our writing careers begin early.

Consider the creative reasons and excuses that began as soon as you could speak, trying to leap the tall buildings of your parents’ house rules.

Consider the endeavor of school’s first day, the exercise of “What I did over my summer vacation.” It seemed better to delve into the pages of Compton Encyclopedia and invent a trip to India than to recount the mundane, lazy days of summer in a small Midwestern town. I was a fictionalizer even then, if only in my imagination. It was a well-nourished means of escape.

I abandoned my imagination in high school, in an effort to write right. I rediscovered the muse in college, a venue where professors were often amazed, though some were amused…I’ve always had my wit about me, you know!

Think back upon your life, Constant Reader, to live is to create is to act is to be – a writer throughout your career called Life.