1:4 Place - My Place as a Writer

I have always been a writer; writing is definitely my thing. I use humor and my wry sense of irreverence to craft a linguistic representation of what's in my head. Lately, I find myself playing more with style; should I overuse comma and semicolons? Should I throw some fragments into my writing? Can I make the whole thing end in gerund phrases? A few years back, my employer found my blog online and sent it to human resources where it was read and picked apart and held over my head as a threat. You haven't lived until you've sat in a room with three of your male superiors who are discussing why it's not appropriate for a teacher to write about orgasms. (Side note: My name and other identifying details were not on it; a pissed-off ex-fling thought he'd out me for fun). After that, although I kept my job -- and soon found a much better one -- I couldn't write. I felt dirty. I'd start to type, and my spine would feel slimy, and I'd second guess every word that came out of my head.

Around this time, I met a friend who helped me learn about the skeptical and atheist communities. For a while, I became an outspoken editor on a well-read atheist blog. It allowed me to take that focus off of my own ideas, so I still got the experience of being in a writing community, but I didn't have to keep looking over my shoulder to see who was offended by what I had to say. It was... refreshing. It was kind of getting back on the bike, so to speak, but with training wheels. But then, after a year or two of editing, the blog went under and I was left without a place to write. A few of us floundered around, forming an online magazine, but that never really panned out.

Then, my boyfriend mentioned to me that Skepchick was looking for teachers to write on their new education blog, School of Doubt. I applied, got accepted, and began writing about my experience as an atheist teacher at a public school. The problem was that I didn't really have much to say. It wasn't like I went around waving an atheist flag and making my co-workers argue their faith with me. (Well, except for the guy that taught next door to me, but I think I drove him away because he's teaching at the middle school now.) My students didn't bring up religion in the classroom and I certainly don't. I had a cute story or two, and I did some research and wrote some pissed-off columns about prayers at graduations, but that was about it. So, when the editor left to spend time with his new baby, I took over editing duties. And I kind of sucked at it. I'm more of a "let me fix your writing, let's rally the troops and set up a themed set of articles" editor than a "here are the technical parts of the website than I can fix" editor, and so pretty soon, I promoted a co-editor who was (and is!) a great guy who knows his stuff. And then THAT allowed me to switch over to being part of the Editor team for the Skepchick parenting blog, Grounded Parents. That site is also amazing, and the group that we gathered is crazy awesome. But it also attracted some pretty vehement protesters, and it brought up weird memories of having my writing scrutinized and my life threatened. And it's parenting. People are pretty invested in how they parent, and feelings run deep. I found that I could either give cute stories about my kid or write articles that were wishy-washy and didn't offer any strong opinions -- or I could prepare for fighting in the comments. And so, after three months of helping to edit and write the blog, I gracefully bowed out.

This left me without a port in the storm, so to speak. I was on my own as a writer again. I didn't have a buffer of writing for a larger group, and I wasn't editing anything. Once again, it's me and my words. I don't know if I'm ready to write my more controversial matter yet. But I'm feeling okay being me. I'm confident in putting my words online again. This may mean that, like, ten people read my writing instead of over a thousand. I think I'm okay with that. So that's my place -- my place as a writer. And I'm going to assume that my place as a writer will change from year to year. Maybe I'll write a book. Maybe I'll write something crazy and start a new revolution. Or maybe I'll just write for myself. No matter what, the point is that I can write and not be punished for it. I'll take that any day.

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