Words on Writing

I'm going to take a quick break from writing about our move for this post. Just a lot of things on my mind that I want to put it out there so I have some accountability.

I love writing. When I was a teenager I loved writing stories. Actually, writing stories started way before that. I used to be embarrassed by what I did when I first started writing, but now that I am older, it's interesting for me to look back on when my writing started and to remember how creative I used to be.

I don't remember the exact age when I started writing these little stories I wrote and I really wish I had some of them to look back on. My story line was very simple...I would think of someone I would marry (usually it was someone famous, George Michael, Barry Manilow...hmmm..lol) and then I would list when we got married and then each of the kids we would have. I would write out the full names of the children, their date of births, how much they weight, etc. After deciding who my family would be, I would start writing this families story. Sometimes there was a child that got sick and I even remember writing in a few times that one of the children died. I had so much fun writing these stories and I was even writing them into middle school. I usually kept them pretty hidden and I didn't want anyone to know what I was writing. Well, one day as my Dad and I were driving somewhere he asked me about these stories I had written. He was confused and really didn't understand them. I think when he asked me about the stories I was so embarrassed that I quickly tried to change the subject. The subject was never brought up again and I never wrote those kind of stories again.

When I was in high school one of my favorite classes was the typing class I took my freshman year. My hands instantly felt at ease on the keyboard and within a few weeks I was lessons ahead of the teacher. It was freeing typing out words and sentences and I loved (and still do) the way my fingers are able to move, at times, faster than I can think. After being introduced to typing I immediately went home and asked my parents if they had a typewriter. This was 1989, so it was way before the home computer and you were lucky if your family had a typewriter.

I spent hours and hours typing stories. I had started to read Danielle Steele books and I was kind of using her theme of there being a love story, and then something tragic happening in the middle of the love story. I remember one time my Mom had a friend over and they wanted me to read a story that I had been writing and working on. This was the first time that I had read out loud something I had written...and at that time, my writings were very personal to me. I remember seeing my Mom and her friend completely engulfed in my story. I think at one point my Mom's friend even cried a little in one part. It was amazing to me that I could write something that would affect something so deeply that they cried.

 Somewhere along the way, I stopped writing. Starting a blog in 2005 helped open that door and I dreamt of maybe one day writing a book. I always thought that I wanted to write a book about my life, but I am also realizing there are lots of stories in my mind that would love to be freed.

I'm excited about this writing spark I seem to have found and I really want to work on becoming a better writing, learning how to write in an elegant way that makes my words float on the page.

I'm can't wait to get started.