I've been writing for a long time. I read somewhere that being a writer is like giving yourself homework every day for the rest of your life. And it is. Not that I'm complaining. There's days that my fingers practically itch to sit down to that keyboard and let them fly over those familiar keys.
I read somewhere that a writer is always either writing or thinking about writing-- that we don't get vacations-- and it's true. Even before I first put pencil to paper all those years ago, I was aware of everything. I found inspiration everywhere. I found it in the pictures that music always put into my head, I found it in the way the rain ran down windowpanes. I found it in the laughter and tears and the anger and joy of everyone I've ever met in my life.


All these years later, I still remember the way it felt the first time I put pencil to paper. The first time I penned out a title, and directly beneath it, I wrote the words "Written by" and my name. All these years later, I remember how good it felt to sit back and to just stare at those words.
The first time I wrote the words "the end" and sat back to stare at them, I remember the feeling of accomplishment way back when. And no, that story was never in any book, no it was never an article or seen by anyone aside from my friends and family, but it was the first thing I'd ever written on my own. It was something that wouldn't have existed if I hadn't taken the time and had the thought to put pencil to paper.


Looking back now, the grammar was probably horrendous. Back then I knew nothing of when to separate paragraphs, or the "rules" of writing. Then again, to this day, I still don't know the rules of writing. Rules... it seems strange to me, always did. Hemingway once said that writing was easy, that all you had to do was sit down at a typewriter and bleed. How can you do that-- how can you be that honest, that open-- and still always follow the rules?


My grammar isn't always perfect. Sometimes my spelling can be suspect. But I write now as I've always written-- from my heart, my gut, my soul. I write as I feel it, as I see it. When I'm angry I write it as I feel it. When I'm elated or heartbroken I write it as it feels. If you're looking for perfect grammar, if you're looking for someone who's taken the classes or who watches for that evil little green line (yeah, that little line and I have an understanding. He tells me what to do, and I ignore the hell out of him.)


I'm a young woman who fell in love with the written word when I was four, when my mother first sat down and taught me how to read, how to write my own name. From then on, I was hooked on words, and the incredible worlds that books could show you in your head. The incredible things they could show you. It was like magic to me, even then. There's no other way to put it. I became addicted to words. I read any and everything I could get my hands on. I lost count of how many times my mom would take me to the library and I'd check out stack upon stacks of books, swearing up and down that "these books will last the week, mom, I promise", only to have them read within a couple days.


She used to laugh and swear up and down that I didn't read books, that I devoured them. And I loved every minute of it. To this day, I'm known to pick up a book and to read it through without stopping.
But I'm off topic. I do that. Apologies. Merely trying to give you an idea of what to expect if you choose to read my blog. You're falling headfirst into the mind of someone who's been in love with words her whole life, who loves books and the writers of them, who loves movies and all the people behind them. As someone who's been told I have "the imagination from hell" I love nothing more than to be around people of a similar nature. They fascinate me. They inspire me.


I love to sit down with people and talk about books, about movies and music. I love to sit down and brainstorm with friends about writing they're working on, to share mine with them and to hear theirs, and to help them with theirs, if I can. I love to see inspiration light them up and see them take off running with it. It's magic. There's no other way I can think of putting it. Pure magic.


If you're still here, and I haven't scared you off just yet, I thank you so much for your time, knowing just how precious and fleeting a thing it can be. If indeed you choose to read my blog, please know that I only wish to share my thoughts and my passions, my dreams and hopes with you, in the hope that perhaps one day something you come across will inspire someone somewhere somehow in their lives. That perhaps it will spark something that sends them running full speed from their computer, driven to work on something that stirs their passions, and sets their soul on fire.


If I can do that, then I consider it time well spent.