I was never comfortable saying, “Hey, check out this latest collection my work was published in.”
Especially to my family.
I’m of the opinion any writing I did would not impress the whole of my family or even friends from the past. Like many people, I compartmentalize aspects of my life. Career, raising children, daily tasks, and of course writing.
I started this blog when my son was a baby.
He’s nine now.
I’ve written on and off.
During the last four years, all of my daughter’s life, I’ve faced heavy challenges. These led me to understand I have to keep writing instead of closing it off. I need to make the time for it instead of pushing it down.
Why would I kick out something that is a vital part of me?
The time to write is now, and I’m not as worried about having a low or medium amount of followers. I want to write about the different aspects of life I know well.
I started years ago with the idea of a memoir. What about?
I had to find what I call the center or the meat of the story: mental illness and autism or my son and me.
As writers, we need to expand our platforms, or the places where we write whether we read from a stage or write mostly online.
My return to writing regularly, as it is like breath to me, has helped me start to heal from damage done from events in my professional and personal life.
Expand my platform:
- In the process of restarting my education blog I once created for a graduate class. I changed it from “The Know How of Teaching Writing Online” to Third Gen Ed for the fact I’m a third generation educator.
- I changed the title of my blog “An Apple Between Trees” to “The Bridesmaid Reject” to discuss the importance and raise awareness about mental illness and autism.
My son, who I call Hayes in all of my writing, expresses himself in different ways often through drawing and Science.
- “The Bridesmaid Reject” is connected to my memoir, A Messed Up Kind of Beautiful.
The story begins with me as a girl without a social compass and whose brain often works differently than others, and when I grow up, I have a son with the same struggle. He is diagnosed with autism.
- “Meals on Three Burners” is coming back. I started this blog when my son was three to share stories about cooking and recipes. I hadn’t touched it since 2017, and I just brushed up the About Page. I’m about to kick it off again in the next few days with my rolled up pork chops stuff with apples.
- Last but not least, I’m working on polishing and finishing a poetry chapbook, a short collection of interconnected poems, called Recollections of Luska They are memoir style poems about recent experiences.
We have so much knowledge within us after we’ve lived some life and reflection. I believe reflection is vital piece of it.
One part of me has stayed the same from the time I was three-years-old, and my aunt stapled print out paper together on which I drew stories: I’ve always had a word or more to say.
Photos and Writing by Rebecca T. Dickinson
Corrie's Season 
While I am not good at it, I am better at asking a stranger to read something of mine before a family member.
I am, too. I’m better with other writers or people I don’t know because I write more nonfiction or memoir style. It’s too close to allow them to read it really.
I can’t get my family to read anything of mine ever. (They don’t have time to read, they say, but they have plenty of time scrolling thru social media.) Eventually I saw it as an opportunity to expand my audience. It’s honestly a relief because I dig into some personal stuff that I’d rather they not know about lol
I am writing a memoir and poetry which can be very personal, but to which others may relate. Keep it up! Keep expanding your platform!