Writing has always been a guilty pleasure of mine. I call it a guilty pleasure because it is something I keep oddly personal. I keep notes and quotes tucked away in the 4 notebooks I have going right now. I don’t like to share my creative thoughts with just anyone, but I haven’t always been that way. I remember my 9th grade English class because of our writing journals. Our creative writing time was my favorite thing about that class…well that and the time one of my classmates threw the “Question Ball” out the window and it landed on Mrs. Seay’s math trailer behind my high school. Mrs. Blackmon had a way of asking the silliest questions or writing the most bizarre writing prompts for our creative writing journals. Every day, we had 10 minutes to get our short story or thoughts down for the day in our notebooks that were due on Friday morning. I waited anxiously for the return of them every Monday after she read through our stories and gave her red check of approval. She always took the time to write comments about her favorite part of the story (maybe that’s where I learned the importance of little details…).
Now, I make excuses instead of writing. It seems easier, but more and more, I am feeling like I was not created to do things the easy way. It’s surprising to me that I wrote that sentence because I recently wrote in my journal, “I hate when things are hard. I try to say ‘Hard work is a virtue’, and I try to act all tough. But hard work sucks.” Personal growth, eh? I guess I am at this point where I want to contribute. I find myself jotting down sentences from books and quotes from great role models that speak to me, and I want to add my own words to the world.
Anyway, I have big plans for this little corner of mine on the world wide interwebs. I hope that it will be a way to connect with friends – new and old – and a way to chronicle the adventures I find myself on. It will house race recaps and thoughts I have on long runs. It will offer up recipes for smoothies and crisps. It will be the beginning of a conversation, and the encouragement I need to write.
Welcome to my little world. I’m happy to have you here.