What is a writer’s life look like?
Almost fifteen years ago I determined that writing isn’t an innate talent bequeathed to a few. Despite what my AP English teacher, Mr. Hahn, told me my senior year of high school, I was not a writer. For twenty years, I had checked the proverbial box of being a writer and never looked back. I never looked back until I wanted to write a book, I wanted to be published, and I wanted to share my stories. Why couldn’t I be both marine biologist and a writer? I learned writing is a craft, and like all forms of art, is fine-tuned with instruction and practice.
The road to where I am now in my writing life came with many changes in direction. I liken it to planning a long road trip across the continental USA. On this roadtrip your destination is the west coast. What happens in between east coast and west coast is left up to chance or whatever your mood is after your morning cup of coffee. You are in no hurry so you meander through the midwest, then to the southwest, then maybe backtrack to the gulf coast to get an oyster po’boy in New Orleans. My writing journey has been a meandering of sorts, there has been no roadmap, and certainly no preferred route.
When I determined I wanted to write and be a writer and eventually an author, I was mid-career as a marine biologist. I had no savings, I had no husband and I had no generational wealth to fall back on. I have to admit, I also didn’t have the courage to take the leap into being a writer. Did I want to be a freelancer? Did I want to be a science writer? Did I want to be a journalist? Did I want to write novels or memoirs? My journey to be a marine scientist was fairly straightforward. Step one, graduate high school. Step two, graduate from College with a BA in Biologist. Step three, graduate from graduate school with a MS in Marine Sciences. Step four, land a job in a federal agency and begin career as a marine biologist. This journey from graduating high school in Chicago, IL to landing a job with the federal government in Seattle, WA took twelve years. If I included the years since I knew I wanted to be a marine biologist, the journey took sixteen years. You could say I’m right on track to beginning my career as a writer.
When I fell in love with the idea of being a marine biologist, it was the ocean’s fault. I wanted to share my love of the ocean with the world. I had no clue what it meant to be a marine biologist. I didn’t know what research entailed. I didn’t know I had to choose a course of study. In short, I had to figure out what it was I wanted to study. What was I most passionate about? Sea turtles in the Caribbean? Fish on coral reefs? Fish in general? My cringeworthy essay for my application to graduate school probably said something like, I want to save the fish. Fish became my passion. Ichthyology became my course of study.
Falling in love with the idea of being a writer is Oprah’s fault. From the first time I met Oprah at a “Don’t Do Drugs” assembly at Lane Tech High School when I was a junior in high school, to watching The Oprah Show religiously, I wanted to be on her show. My first essay – if you want to call it that – is called The Oprah Prize. It was published on the now defunct webzine seattlewritergrrls.org. I read part of it during an open mic at Seattle’s Hugo House in 2003. I read it for almost 15 minutes. No one stopped me. My boyfriend at the time shot down my elation by saying he was embarrassed for me. A decade after it was published, I looked for it, reread it, and determined it was cringeworthy.
My journey in writing has taken me to many geographic destinations. I have taken many classes both formal and informal. I have joined and exited a few writing groups. Exited may be the wrong word, they all simply disappeared, vanished, went poof. Have you experienced that too? I even started my own writing meetup in the Green Lake neighborhood of Seattle. I don’t even know what website I used. We met at the Starbucks on the north end of Green Lake because I wanted the writing group to be near my house. The group was a success, if you consider success as having several people show up every time we met. The group failed primarily because I didn’t want to be the group leader. I had no idea what I was doing. Everyone wanted to read their work. Others wanted to write. When the group became too large for the Starbucks, suggestions of other locations took the group away from the Green Lake neighborhood. It became complicated, so I let it dissolve. It went poof.
Over the last week, I have been looking for writers groups, retreats, and organizations in Oahu to join. I participated in a writing retreat at the Windward Community College last Saturday. I am attending a meeting next week with the Honolulu Branch of the National League of American Pen Women and I’ll probably become a member. Later in November I plan on attending a day long retreat with the Oahu Writer’s Retreat. Concurrent to this I am attending a 10-week mentor-led writing group organized by Story Summit, to revise a screenplay I have written. My goals are to write a few personal essays for publication, revise my memoir manuscript and book proposal to begin pitching agents in January 2025, and once my screenplay is revised to perfection figure out how to get it “out there.”
All of this I write to say, there is no one way to a writing life. This is the same thing I would tell interns who want to be marine biologists when they grow up, there is no one way to become a marine biologist. Each road leads to a lesson or an opportunity that will become part of your toolbox, part of your skillset that can be taken to a job, or remembered for that next piece of writing. I am grateful that I have the opportunity to do this. Everyday, I wake up and write – whether in my journal or on my computer or in a notebook. I also, enjoy a cup of Kau coffee, breathe in the tropical breeze and smile at the songs of the white-rumped shama. What is your writing life look like?
I want to acknowledge the devastation that has happened in the Valencia region of Spain. Above is a photo taken last June in an area called the Albufera outside of the city of Valencia. Yesterday this region was decimated by extreme rains and flash floods. My heart goes out to the people of Valencia. Note: A branch of the author’s family tree is from the Valencia region. It is where the ancestor with the last name “Puerto” came from.
Rebecca Francesca Reuter Puerto 
Leave a comment