Writing for the love of it
March 2022
I spent much of 2021 on a digital nomad adventure, with a friend. I kept my job in the U.S. but worked remotely for a period of time in my homeland, Guyana, in South America, and then in Anguilla and St. Maarten. I typically chronicle my year in an annual newsletter sent to family and friends, either at the end of the year I’m talking about or the beginning of the new year. It’s usually a two to three page wrap up but, when I started the 2021 version, the words just kept flowing out of me.
What I decided to make a 10-page write up to do justice to the digital nomad life, ended up being a three piece installment newsletter with more than 30 pages of single spaced text with stingy margins! I was, once again, reminded why I love writing so much and how liberating I find my fingers on the keyboard, or my pen on a piece of paper. There is nothing like the words looking back at you in black and white, or blue and white (because I love a good blue pen)! Writing always helps me to put everything in perspective, whether it’s my own feelings or the actions of others. The written word is my conduit to understanding and explaining.
The recipients of my annual newsletter are people I have collected over the years — family, friends from school, friends from life, old co-workers, exes, friends of friends! Anyone I stay connected with who would care about how I am doing. Enough of them remind me that they enjoy my writing, well the readers in the bunch! Some of them are just not readers and that’s okay too, not everybody is a reader. Some are good with a 2-pager, but it gets dicey after three pages! Everyone is happy with the pictures though.
This year as I reflect on the work I want to do for me, my labors of love, I am committing to sharing my writing more. I am always writing something but if I share it is a crap shoot! Whether I have random thoughts that crack me up or random thoughts that are very serious; whether I finally write my book on workplace foolishness that I have been formulating since I wrote my first piece on the subject more than a decade ago; or whether I finally write, “Were you on your medication when you proposed to me?” about my adventures in dating, I’m going to be writing and sharing more in 2022, starting with the resume and cover letter book I began formulating about two years ago.
Over the years, I have created hundreds of resumes and cover letters, either for my own employment endeavors or for others. I also have a massive collection of writing samples. When I began putting a book together, I became overwhelmed. I had SO MUCH content. At the end of last year, when the breeze in St. Maarten hit me at my work station, I realized too much content would also overwhelm a user. A better idea was born when I decided to do a small book with strong content samples. 2022 is definitely going to be the year for my first published book that was not hand sewn by my elementary school teachers! The Bitty Book of Resumes, Cover Letters, and Writing Samples is forthcoming.