Random Thoughts

I became an official blogger on January 4, 2007. As of today I've written 1000 posts. In the essay I've been struggling to write for my writing group's e-book, I've taken a walk down the memory lane of the stages of my writing. (Good Lord, is anyone counting prepositional phrases?) From "friendly" letters I learned to write in grade school, to diaries, to journals, to my blog, I think there has been a common thread.  I was never sure enough about myself to speak my thoughts out loud. But I could write them. It helped that I liked to read what others had to say.  I aspired to write like others before I developed my own style.  In a strange twist I found even at my most depressed, I liked to write things that would make other people laugh. Before I started my blog, I'd been writing group emails to my out-of-state relatives about how my mom was doing.  It was easier to write one letter than repeat the details of hospital stays in different phone conversa...

"We cultivate love when we allow our most vulnerable and  powerful selves  to be deeply seen  and known,  and when we honor the spiritual connection  that grows from that offering with trust, respect, kindness and affection." Brene Brown ChicaPeeps.com     is a place where women share their stories of the special bond girlfriends create. Where women can gain strength and support from each other. A  couple days ago Chica Peeps founder, Veyla Jancz-Urban asked  me to be their guest blogger. I  have to say I felt pretty darn special.  It didn't take long, however, for the negative voices in my head to begin their chatter.  "Who do you think you are?" came through loud and clear. But then I thought about the Brene Brown interview I'd heard on NPR last Sunday. I decided to feel my vulnerability and write anyway. Who do I think I am? I'm a woman with a story to tell. And you know what, that's enough.  It helped ...

Five years ago today I started this blog. Five years? How can that be? I barely even knew what a blog was back then. But I did know that I had words inside of me that didn't want to stay bottled up any more. Computer journaling seemed as good a way as any to start working on stretching my writing muscles. When I look back I am amazed to see how technology has put me in contact with people I would never have known. For instance when I started writing, I only had a few followers and they were all relatives. I didn't know Terri St. Cloud which means I didn't know Pam, or Dani, or Sorrow, or Molly, or Mandy, or Stephanie, or Patty. And I hadn't read Mothering Mother so I didn't know Carol O'Dell, had never been in a writing group before, had never been brave enough to submit my writing for critique, let alone publishing, and I didn't have the beret-wearing friends known as Le Chat Noir. I'd never talked on the radio, never had my name in the author section ...

"To live a creative life, we must lose our fear of being wrong." Joseph Chilton Pearce Back when I started this blog, I didn't even know what a blog was. But I knew I liked to write. I needed an outlet for my words or they were going to continue spinning in my head until I burst. And it seemed like it might be fun. I believed my Sweetie, daughter, sister and Aunt Letty would read what I had to say even if no one else would. And I trusted them to be gentle with their comments. You see over my lifetime I have only shared my creative side with people I could trust not to make fun of me. Fear of failure, fear of success and fear of being shamed held me captive. A constant question was "why me?" Why should someone spend their time reading my words? Why should I be published when there are so many others out there who are better? Who do I think I am, Miss Fancy Pants? It might be beginning to sound like an old story, but what I've gotten from blogging has been mu...

"For me, writing is exploration; and most of the time, I'm surprised where the journey takes me." Jack Dann "No one is able to enjoy such feast than the one who throws a party in his own mind." Selma Lagerlöf "We are a species that needs and wants to understand who we are. Sheep lice do not seem to share this longing, which is one reason why they write so little." Anne Lamott I read a newspaper article recently in which the much younger and hipper columnist described the transformation of the seemingly innocent "Hello Kitty" diary of bygone days to the tell-all-no-holds-barred-secrets-be-damned MySpace blog of today. Capitano describes information revealed by today's teens that, quite frankly, shocks me. "Our reckless youth are comfortable with their lives being an open book," she wrote.* She calls these bloggers egocentric. So I started wondering. Even if my postings pale in comparison, does the fact that I have started my own ...