I am a writer but not in the conventionally approved way.
I was taught to write an introduction where I say what I will be talking about. Then I say it. Then I sum it up.
That works great for websites.
Do the bullet points for what will be said.
Then flesh each point out.
Then sum it all up.
This way the 30 second attention crowd can read the bullet points and make up the rest.
The one minute crowd can also read the summary to verify they got the drift.
And the very few who actually care read the middle.
I don't work that way. My mind does not work that way.
I vomit it all onto the page, however it comes out in bits and pieces.
And what comes out is more along the lines of essays and short stories.
And has to be given some slack for the fact that English is my second language.
And since I do short form writing there will not be an overarching theme.
The grand Memoir of Susanne McMillan. How the world turns by Susanne McMillan.
None of that.
There will be bits about my life. It's what I know about.
There will be some thoughts about this and that, maybe even current politics.
As seen through the lens of my experience.
And that experience runs 71 years and counting.
It's funny how when you get old, like real old, you start to add months to the years again. 71 and 3 months.
Like with infants. My baby is 10 months old. Or my 18 months old toddler.
Eventually you count the years, then some place I the middle you find yourself doing math to figure out if you are 41 or 42.
And at the end you are very aware that you are back to counting by months, eventually days and hours.
That is barring the bus running you over before you were done living by your own reckoning.
While I have not gotten more experiences in my 71 years than others, mine are a bit out of the box.
To sum it up:
Born in East Berlin. Family fled to West Germany. Grew up in the Black Forest.
Got good grades at school but finished High School at mid-level from lack of interest. Much to my mother's chagrin - I was not eligible to go to university. So no letter salad after my name. She however retained her hope that at least I would marry someone with a PhD or Dr. after his name. (Spoiler alert- that didn't happen either.)
Went to tech school instead and became a sound tech for radio station work.
Which I did ever so briefly before chucking that too and becoming a hippy.
The hippy thing came in spells with some work in between to finance my slothdom.
One guiding theme had been to make it to New Zealand. (another spoiler art – I never even made it to Australia.)
I went east from Germany and ran out of money. I went west from Germany and ran into a good man, and got hung up in the USA for 30 years. And no letter salad after his name. Just a very smart man who could fix anything, and think his way very nicely through some pretty deep stuff.
When that had run it's course I moved to Belize where I still am. 15 years later. With no plans to move anymore. Or at least not to another country. Ideally feet first out of my house, and maybe, hopefully, not too soon.
Of course there is much detail in all those summarized stages of my life.
Well - I just did it. I told you what I will talk about = Intro
Next up the fleshing out of the bullet points.
And if that counting thing goes on a while - maybe there will be a summary before I keel over.
And there will be chicken stories – you have been warned!
And Art!
And techy stuff.
And dogs. Always dogs.