Exploring My Truth--Writer Style

I just finished reading an article posted to the Pittsburgh Mom website titled “Know Your Truth…and Stand by It.” It was written by blogger Heather Starr Fiedler who frequently finds herself defending her views and opinions online. She must know in her heart what is true for her and stand by it.

The timing of this article is interesting to me because just yesterday I told my husband, “I need a sense of direction.” I was speaking in terms of my career, which still doesn’t feel well-defined as yet, and which I feel (as a 40+-year-old person) should be by now.

My husband, being the helpful gent he is, pointed due north, and then south, east, and west.

“You are vastly unhelpful,” I said.

“You just need to pick a direction and stick to it.” Life always seems so black-and-white simple when I talk to my husband. And yet it rarely seems that simple in my own head.

So reading this blog post about knowing your truth has made me think: What is my truth? Who do I want to be? How do I want to identify myself as a writer? A novelist (my lifelong dream)? An eco-mommy blogger (my current pastime)? An essayist (my only “officially” published genre)?

I’ve struggled for a couple of months to come up with a cohesive website for my writing, but keep coming up short. How do I reconcile these various parts of my career into a cohesive whole, the “me” who is Sue Nelko Carr, writer? What is my truth as a writer?

I’m still narrowing that field down, but here are a few items for starters:

I am a wife and a mom of two.

I care deeply about raising my children in a chemical-free, healthy environment.

I am sickened by the state of our nation’s food production system.

I am a frugal, highly budgeted shopper.

I am working to reduce, reuse, and recycle more each day.

I enjoy exploring these ideas via the written word.

I also enjoy creating new worlds and new characters via fiction and would love to be a career novelist.

Because I am a wife and mother (and also hold down three part-time, paying gigs), I struggle to find the time to write anything most days.

So where do I go from here? Good question. One I will continue to explore (though which direction I’ll face during the process is still a mystery--thanks darling!). 

In the meantime, please check out my latest blog post for Mrs. Green’s World in which I explore the environmental benefits of the increasingly popular and deliciously frugal staycation. Enjoy!