A Little Is Fine

By chance, and a little impulsively, I joined a writing group.

It seemed easier to sign up as it coincided with my sabbatical.

Reading stories by writers whose faces and names I didn’t know, and writing my own, I spent an artistic late autumn and welcomed winter.

Before the writing group started, they sent a letter and a kit, with such thoughtful and cute contents, that I felt a strong sense of having made a good decision to participate!

Before the meeting began, I had to write a brief self-introduction as a writer, and I’d like to share what I wrote with a fluttering heart.

I still vividly remember when I started writing a diary voluntarily, not because of school homework. Looking back, I was quite an introverted child in my teens. I poured out my heart, meticulously writing down the day’s events, the emotions that troubled me, and my honest thoughts in my diary, rather than sharing them with friends or family. Even now, I’m very clumsy at confiding in others. Instead, I write. Perhaps writing is an excellent stress reliever for me, a way to process tangled thoughts and emotions. That’s how I’ve written for myself until now.

“Writing for a reader, not just for oneself.” I believe this phrase, “A little is fine,” which I read during the orientation, is why I joined this group. I want to move beyond diary-like writing that only I see, and write something that many people can read and readily nod their heads to.

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Was that too serious an introduction?

To lightly add what kind of person I am, I enjoy observing the big and small everyday changes brought by the seasons, collecting sentences, loving seasonal music as much as I’m passionate about seasonal food, writing unconventional poems and enjoying accompaniment, knowing the value of silly jokes, and believing that anything cute is forgivable.

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The book comes out in January!!!

Even if it’s slow, steadily doing what I love, and want to do, feels wonderful.