A Passion Developed

If there's something you haven't done that you've been wanting to do, then by all means, don't wait any longer.  Do it!  -- Julianne Moore

From the time I was a little girl, I've always wanted to write and be an author. I am not sure when that wish/desire started but I think it was around the time I was in 5th or 6th grade.

My mom was an avid reader and from the time that I was able to read without help, my mom gently pushed me to start reading more at home. In our bookcase, she had acquired dozens of Reader's Digest Condensed books which is, I think, what devloped my deep love of reading and appreciation of literature. I remember that during the years between my 5th and 6th grade, I didn't read...I inhaled every book within my sight!

I had a close friend at that time, who also was a book worm...and we'd often talk about the books we'd read,sharing them back and forth with each other. I don't recall what made both of us start "writing" stories...but we did. And those stories, bound in spiral notebooks, we shared with some of our closest class mates. From then on, the flame grew and grew, becoming a passion, not only to read but to write as well.

During my second marriage, from 1981-1993, I not only wrote a few short stories but journaled daily. (More about the journaling at another time!) But on a dare...after hearing about a poetry contest...I wrote a poem to enter, and found that writing poetry came easily to me. Although I didn't 'win' I did get honorable mention! My confidence was found and I was featured in a local newspaper every week for a short time and was published in a handful of poetry anthologies.

Since then, life has taken me down a few different roads which led me to put my passion and dreams on the back burner. I still continued to journal and write poems but didn't take the time to enter them in contests or magazines.

It wasn't until I came across a website called Digital Journal in 2007, that the passion began to slowly re-ignite. Although the site is a news site, I could write for them, using my own words to describe a news event which was linked-to in the article. The best part is that I got paid for doing so...although it wasn't enough to survive on.

Still, the flames have continued to grow, and although I write rarely for Digital Journal these days, I am spending more time writing in this blog. As well, I am taking the time to read...and learn more about the writing trade. I know I can do this, turn my dream into reality...but I am taking baby-steps to get there.