Write on, Wednesday: A Gift

by Leslie Lindsay

So the other day, I was checking my phone for messages as I was at a stop-light.  I know, I know…not the safest thing to do.  I was alone, so as not to set a bad example to the little people in my life.  And in my defense, it was a really long light.  And I got a message from someone who doesn’t know me all that well, “You are a gifted writer,” it said (along with a few other things).

Now, I am not one to brag.  In fact, I may be a member of the “self-deprecating humor club,” (SDHC).  I don’t toot my own horn very often; wouldn’t want to come across as a narcissistic weirdo, right?  So, I tend to downplay things I do well.

It may be that I am infact, a good writer (see, there I go again).  Sure, I got good grades in English and my own parents said I was good at writing, but well–you know, that’s different. 

But when my editor said I was a “gifted writer,” well–yahoo!  It must be so.  I suddenly got this deep, viscereal feeling that bubbled up and out of me and into the wide expanse of my minivan, “I AM A WRITER!”  I actually said it–now, talk about tooting my horn.

It felt so good, it felt so wrong.  I don’t know how to explain it.  I don’t want to be a horn-tooter.  But I think it finally hit me, “I am a writer.”  I am.  And I suppose it is something I should be proud of.

We’re all given gifts and this just happens to be one of mine.  Believe me, there are many things I received from the “gene fairies” that I aren’t so gift-able (my singing voice and my mathematical skills, to name a couple).

However, there are days that writing doesn’t always “work” for me, and there are days that I really don’t know what the heck I am doing, but hey–isn’t that all of us?

Anyway, I better get back to some revisions.  Write on, Wednesday!