WRITING

I am a writer. I am a writer. I am a writer. 

I. AM. A. WRITER 

I keep telling myself that. I tell other people. I was a journalist major. I basically wrote my high school newspaper's entire sports section, and pretty much did the same thing in college, though I did have some help from my friend Bill. My original career goal was to be a sports writer, but instead I ended up going into the college sports information profession. It was a good career while it lasted, and I did get to use my writing skills a lot.

A few years ago I decided to start a blog. Originally it was going to be mostly about my journey navigating the path of adult Tyoe 1 diabetes since 2008. I wrote a couple entries. And that was it. A couple years ago my counselor at the time encouraged me to start writing again. Not necessarily about the diabetes if I wasn't feeling it, but about ANYTHING. So I wrote about our cat. That was fun!

I actually do know what my problem is and why I don't write more and post blog entries more.  I am a perfectionist.  Very hard on myself, especially when it comes to my writing.  I am overwhelmed by spelling, grammar, punctuation -- that's the Journalism major in me.  Also, I always think that I need to write things in a certain way so that they are "in order" and "make sense".

But Hell, it's MY blog, right? Who am I trying to prove something to? I can do what I want with it. If I want to write an entry all in one paragraph or jump around to random topics in one entry, that's my right. If people want to read it, awesome. If not, that is fine. It's MY blog. It's for ME to write what's important to me.

Lately I have made quite a few friends through a Facebook group of fans of my favorite band, Breaking Benjamin. This band's music is wonderful, amazing, powerful, inspiring. And, it turns out, the friends I have made in the group -- though we have never met and may never meet in person -- are some of the best people I know. Many of them are creative souls like me -- musicians, writers, artists. They are inspiring me to use my talent and do what makes me happy. In turn, I am trying to encourage them to do the same.

I have added a few blog entries lately. A couple were actually just copied and pasted from some things I posted on Facebook. My most recent post, about mental and emotional health and counseling, was written specifically for the blog. This post you are reading is a combination of a message I recently sent to a friend and fellow writer explaining why I don't write more, and original thoughts I have added to that.

THANK YOU to anyone who takes the time to read this! I really appreciated it. XOXOXO