There’s nothing like a deadline to get my butt into high gear. Once, upon entering my sparkling clean home, a friend said, “You must be on a serious deadline, your house looks amazing.” She was right. My thesis was due the next day. A few weeks ago, with a draft of a novella a week overdue to my editor, and an academic article due the following day, it seemed like a great time to reach out to the editor of The Lincoln County News, J.W. Oliver, about writing a column.
I had considered writing a column for a while, but because of my master’s degree work, regular work, and parenting work, I didn’t have the time. The thing about time, and deadlines specifically, is that you realize how much you can squeeze into a few hours that are supposed to be allocated to something else.
My living room, which sported not one, but two large paint sample splotches for over three years because I didn’t have time to select a color and finish the job, was painted a brilliant blue (which was neither of the sample colors) one weekend when I should have been working on my aforementioned novella. The time had miraculously become available.
The other thing I noticed about time, and you probably guessed this was coming, was how much of it can get sucked up by social media. Which brings me to the other reason I thought I would like to write a column. For about a year, I occasionally wrote and posted funny little blurbs about things I saw around town, or stories about my day on Facebook. I called them “Dispatches From Damariscotta” and people liked them.
More than one person asked me if I had thought about putting them in the paper. And so, I thought about it. I thought about how any amount of time I spent crafting words to post on my profile for people to enjoy for free was not really free at all. I thought about how the time I spent writing those posts and the time my friends spent reading them was making money for a huge corporation. I thought about how that corporation, far from our little community, will never invest a penny in any of our businesses, schools, or nonprofits. And those thoughts didn’t sit right with me. In fact, those thoughts made me a little queasy.
If I aim to use my writing to bring a little joy and light into my community, the best home for that writing is here in this paper, which supports our community in a way no social media outlet ever will. And, yes, I suppose in avoiding a deadline I ended up with another deadline. My house is going to look fantastic.
(Kate Kastelein is a mother, a writer, and an aspiring curmudgeon. She lives in Damariscotta, where she writes funny nonfiction and scary fiction in an office that used to be a closet. For more information, visit katekastelein.com.)
