Introducing ... 'Dear Me'

Letters to a young writer from his more experienced self. Coming August 1.

“If I only knew then what I know today …”

We’ve all said it. In this series, I intend to make it happen.

As a young writer fresh out of Dartmouth College (and a disappointing first year of law school), I started a journal of my freelancing endeavors — because, of course, I was going to be a Great Writer. Someday scholars would want to follow my illustrious career.

That’s the young writer in question, circa 1980, at his employer’s IBM Selectric. This enlarged halftone, or screened, photo shows how the press reproduces textures using tiny dots of ink.

And I was right! Today I am a pretty darned good, but not Great, writer. But I didn’t know that I’d be the “someday scholar” in question.

I turned to the journals to help me understand why a favorite project that I started in my college days eluded me for 40 years — and then some. It’s been a journey of self-discovery that I hope will help guide today’s young writers, entertain fellow Boomers, and show that some things never change.

Watch a Work In Progress

My blog at hwfielding.com is a retirement project that, after 35 years as a journalist, gives me the freedom to write whatever I want. It’s a mixed bag of humor, history, essays, criticism, Bubble Wrap history, Works in Progress — whatever comes to mind. And that is liberating. But it is also distracting.

My research on one WIP — a book about how I wrote a play — led me to my journals from my first years as a freelance writer and newspaper editor. Soon it became clear that the novice needed a bit of advice from a seasoned professional, which I offered in a series of blog posts. The series quickly took over the blog.

Dear Me is a spinoff from that series. The journal entries and commentary will become a series of letters from a writer at the beginning of his career to his seasoned self, who will respond with advice, criticism, and occasional bits of cultural nostalgia. A journal is, after all, a continuing story with characters, goals, obstacles, plot, reversals in fortune, and life lessons to be learned.

Won’t you join me on my journey? We’ll set out together on August 1.

What you’ll find here

Let’s build a community of writers, young and old, who want to reach across the generations to share experiences, joys, and life lessons. The young writer you’ll meet is a dreamer and often naive. He makes the mistakes we all make in finding our way through life and career. Let’s help him — and today’s young writers — together.

The letters here will be 2-4 minute reads, usually two to five posts a week. Free subscribers may read each dispatch for a week before it is archived behind the pay wall.

To become part of the commenting community and follow the whole story through the archives, I hope you’ll find it worth $5 a month or $50 a year to join as a paid subscriber.

Founding Members also become my angels — you give me the motivation to continue, and provide some venture capital for a future book project. Many thanks!

Here’s your invitation to join the party:

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