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Inside the Cafe

Kathy Coogan
Freelance Writer

(Scroll to the bottom for a complete list
of all of my writing at WRC.)

Giving Sustenance

I have no eye/hand coordination, thus I am not an athlete nor can I play an instrument or knit or crochet. I am a fair cook, though, and quite the hostess. But having company (as my mother called it) can’t be done every day.

I am confident, intuitive and effective at home repairs, the kinds that do the job, look pretty and improve, fruits of labor that make me proud. I manage our family real estate rentals with courtesy and aplomb. My favorite tool (besides my cellphone to call a professional when I get in over my head) is my battery-operated screwdriver but I confess I actually thought the advice for carpenters was: Measure once. Cut twice. Sigh.

What I am really good at is reading. As a kid, I preferred to read about games than to play them. As I grew up, as I read, I would swoon over a sentence or a paragraph. And the oddest thing would happen. Occasionally I would think to myself, only to myself, I could do that.

But the thing is, I have always hated my handwriting. My brain spits out intriguing phrases and my pen just can’t keep up. It’s not pretty. Plus I am a lousy typist. Can I blame my eye/hand deficiency for that? Or is it some form of manual dyslexia that makes me type acme for came, over and over again?

Everything I wrote or typed looked messy, too messy. Or took too long--the re-copying, you understand--took too long. I am a very busy woman. And very neat. So these were my pitiful excuses for not writing. It was the mechanics, only the mechanics.

And then along came Bill. Gates, that is. The man behind the PC: the delete button, the backspace and god bless him, the save. I no longer had an excuse not to write. To paraphrase David Sedaris, Me write pretty right now.

With all those little up, down and over arrows I could write, shudder and erase. I could embellish and rearrange. So write I did, a lot. Lots of pretty, neat writing; some of it worthy of the save key. But, though writing is a solitary instant gratification, I wondered, Why write if what I write isn’t read.

I am not a shy person. I enjoy meeting people, love conversation and have done some public speaking. I have read newspapers and books aloud on tape for the vision impaired and I like my alto speaking voice.

Microphones don’t scare me and as long as my slip isn’t showing and there is someone to tell me that there’s no lipstick on my teeth, I am calm behind a podium. (Small enclosed spaces make me hyperventilate but that’s for another time.) The thought of reading my stories and poems or essays aloud to living strangers, made me sweat.

Worse was the thought of these strangers reading my stuff in private where I could not lean over their shoulders and explain what I really meant. And if some of those strangers were men…Yikes! Some of my fiction writing is dark and secret and female.

What would they think of me? Me, a very nice person, whose brain is beyond my control. It’s not my fault that my errant mind concocts ways to kill husbands (not mine of course) or tells me stories about sad people, sick people, evil people. I only write them down, tapping keys on a keyboard, neatly, with pointer, tall man and sometimes my thumb.

So I needed a safe place to give my words to people; to entrust them to read my sentences themselves, far away from my explanations. Email came to my rescue. A lengthy one sent to a colleague. He responded, Are you a Writer? Capital W. I swallowed and responded, Yes. He said, I thought so. He asked, Would you write an article for my magazine? I gulped, Absolutely. How brave I became under cover of email.

With that first step taken, the chasm was bridged to a career of writing for business and non-profits and prizes for short story and poetry. But first I ventured into a circle of women writers who listened and eased me in with praise and suggestions. Next I found a coed group, where I learned that guy-writers have insecurities too, and wisdom.

Feedback, blessed feedback: that interesting word. I think: providing nutrition, giving sustenance. And here, anticipating giving sustenance and receiving it, I am ready to transcribe what my brain has to offer. Neatly, with pointer, tall man and sometimes my thumb.

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Follow any of these links to my Writers Resources Cafe articles, essays and short stories. Come back frequently to read the lastest offerings. Enjoy!

First my work as a freelance writer is examined at these links:

Freelance Roots

Ready for Reality?

Whose Point Of View? Yours or Your Publishers?

Freelance Writers Revise, Revise, Revise

A Published Rant Against Super-sizing

A Commissioned Article About JDRF

Using a Personal Experience to Get Published

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The essay form can be used to observe, explain and defend. Here are several essays, some professionally detached, some emotionally charged.

How We Begin

Cynicism in Suburbia