limping toward writing

guest post by Jerry Apps 


My writing career was greatly influenced by what happened in 1947. In January of that year, I came down with polio and was confined to bed for several weeks, out of school, and not able to walk. I was in eighth grade, attending a one-room country school.

That fall, able to walk but not run, I entered Wild Rose High School. I discovered I could not participate in any sports because of a bum leg, and was encouraged to take a typewriting class with a room full of girls (a rather enjoyable experience as it turned out). I became a reporter for the Rosebud, our school newspaper, and then editor. I wrote many of the articles, all of the editorials, and “borrowed” heavily from Reader’s Digest, Farm Journal, Wisconsin Agriculturist and other sources. I had not yet learned about plagiarism.

In 1966, after college, the army, marriage and the beginning of a full-time teaching job. I began freelancing a weekly column called “Outdoor Notebook” for several central Wisconsin newspapers. This was the first time I was paid for my writing, earning a hefty $5.00 for each column. I did this for ten years, not missing a week. I called these years of column writing my writing apprenticeship. Everything I wrote was published—the good, the bad, and the ugly.

My first book, The Land Still Lives, was published in 1970, which was the beginning of my book writing career. Several nonfiction books followed. I also had long wanted to write novels. After many rejections, false starts and abandoned projects, my first novel, The Travels of Increase Joseph came out in 2003. Since then I have written five additional novels—the most recent to be published in fall, 2014.

In 2012, Wisconsin Public TV contacted me about doing a documentary based on several of my books about early farm life in Wisconsin. The hour-long show (A Farm Story) came out in 2012, and was aired on some 65 public television stations in 49 states. WPT did a second hour-long documentary with me, (A Farm Winter), in 2012, which aired in 2013. This documentary is based on my book The Quiet Season, Wisconsin Historical Society Press, 2013.

After many years of not wanting people to know about my bout with polio and how it was the main reason I am writing today, I was convinced to write about the experience. Limping Through Life, (2013, Wisconsin Historical Society Press) is about my polio experience and how my writing career evolved over the years because of it.

After nearly fifty years as a professional writer (meaning it earns me a little money), I still try to write six days a week. And after all of these years, I am still learning how to do it.


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Visit Jerry Apps at his blog and learn more about him on his website.

the winter of my discontent

by Karen Dums

Wisconsin may be called  God's Country by some, but the landscape, especially in the northern parts, is not for the meek. I've lived here all my life. I've ridden the rollercoaster that weather brings and for the most part "weathered" it without major difficulty.

The winter of 2013/2014 is different.

It began with an inate sadness. I hesitate to call it depression -- far too clinical for my present state. There is a restlessness residing in my soul. There is a need I cannot define. Ephemeral. Veiled. Half-formed nebulous thought that needs putting to paper (or computer screen) yet I have no will. Has this long cold winter sapped me? What shall I do? After all it may be months until spring.

Am I not a writer? Am I not capable of creating a world beyond this sub-zero ice-clad snow-to-my-hips place? Of course I am. I can write sun and sandy beach and ocean waves pounding; I can write of music, how it takes me to a different time, a different place. A place where I am free! Unencumbered by mittens, hats, boots and long underwear.

When I arrive at any of those places I realize I am overthinking. I can surely find simple beauty in the arc of draped snow, defying gravity. Or the striated layers, another thing of beauty, those white mounds on deck, roof, trees. Or the glistening trees. Or a pillar of woodsmoke rising to the sky.

Hmmmm.  This long cold winter seems to be sending me off on a voyage of self-discovery. Not what I can endure, or even my limitations, but how I can stretch myself to reach those very limits and persevere. Find words, blessed words, no matter how well they attempt to stay hidden.

Here's a truth: so much of writing for me is emotion. It spills on the page as happiness, love, rage, that dark side of my psyche that oft needs to escape its bonds. I can find words for that. Easily. No matter what the weather I will find words to bend to my will. I suddenly realize they have not been hiding from me, it is I who have been hiding from them. Even in my discontent I can put pen to paper and create!

A bit of advice: Don't suppress your sense of self when you are writing. There is no need, no matter the topic. To write does not always mean to share. Sometimes we write simply selfishly -- therapeutically so to speak -- to maneuver ourselves past a bad patch, to revel in a good happenstance, to sing without music and to dance without fear. I'll be dancing as fast as I can until spring arrives. And writing all the while.