Writing for fun again: what am I to do? Can't help it!

So, my 70th year is almost over—doh! (That happens, Rachel.) It's been awesome and the next year will be awesome too.

An influx of maturity and wisdom never arrived, sorry to report.

But just in the nick of time I can imagine my next writing project. Thank goodness: there's nothing more fun than writing for fun.

Ever since finishing Scarlet Heels: 26 stories about sex, I've been almost 100% businesswoman—apart from a blissful stint as writer in residence at Lavigny. I've even stopped transcribing poems that dribbled out of my granddaughter's mouth because I felt I was invading her privacy.

Lately I have been inspired by Maud Casey, a wonderful young New York novelist who was with me at Lavigny. I've just read The Shape of Things To Come. She has that proportion thing right: the prose is exceedingly easy to read and understand and yet quite often there's a sentence that's so brazenly original and wise or mysterious or metaphorical, it's like a salutary slap in the face. I don't want to be boring or bored, but I don't want to be impenetrable or pretentious either. Maud is my model at present.

That, and reading a patchy book of memoirs by distinguished old NZers, yesterday gave me a vision of my next writing project. Very thrilling to see the way it could be, even if it never happens. I think I'm going to write random poems randomly related to life as an officially older person. Not unlike this blog, but as poems.

Odd and funny and real would be the goal. And not boring! I'm sick of oldies who relate earnestly how life was when they were young, how it's changed and what they think of that. I don't care.

I don't usually announce what I'm going to write: that's just asking for trouble. But I'm old enough to be pretty sure this one will happen. Not quickly, because I'm busy. But in a steady dribble, as is appropriate for an old lady laughing.

Writing for fun again—what am I to do? I can't help it.

Old lady in Delhi

This old lady went to Delhi for 11 days in November. I attended the 12th Annual Conference of the Society for Technical Communication India Chapter, went to Pune for one day on business, and to Agra as a tourist.

Oh dear. I feel a niggling urge to defend myself against my own inner critic.

Rachel critic: You didn't have a Delhi experience. You had a conference-in-the-Sheraton experience.
Rachel defendant: It was excellent, and an ideal plan for a business trip, my first in India.

Rachel critic: You spent a lot of money for the privilege, didn't you?
Rachel defendant: Oh get over it. Staying in the Sheraton sure made my professional activities run smoothly, and that's what I was there for.

Rachel critic: You only saw five beggars the whole time you were there! Don't tell me you saw the Real Delhi.
Rachel defendant: So at least part of Delhi had been upgraded and sterilized for the Commonwealth Games and the Obamas' visit. Is that my fault? Anyway I didn't go there to see Delhi. I went to introduce our wonderful Contented online courses to India and to explore the potential of this fascinating new market.

Rachel critic: OK I give up. Tell it your way.
My way: I enjoyed the conference, the people, the presentations. It was very well run and I learned heaps about the technical communication industry in India. Doors opened a chink. Contented.com has already benefited.

I also learned a personal lesson: one inspiring presentation is worth 21 educational or marketing presentations. Wow! That was such a surprise. Because I had to give two presentations, I quite frivolously called one Knowledge, Wisdom, and the Joy of Writing. It was such fun to express my feelings on this topic, and I spoke with joy and saw joy reflected in delegates' faces.

What a lesson for me: be less earnest, join the dance, let yourself go, and enjoy the consequences.