Writing Again

A long, loooong time ago, I used to write. For fun.

I think I started trying to write stories just about the time I was learning to write. It might actually be my fault we found termites in our underground house 30 years ago (they can eat through concrete walls ... who knew?). Because they made mincemeat of the stacks (and stacks) of paper that I had scrawled stories on and stuffed in the bookcase in the back of my closet. Those stories, obviously, got tossed. But I kept writing. I won my first writing competition when I was in 5th grade, and I kept going.

Writing was easy, an extension of dreaming, and it was something I was good at without much effort. So when it came time to figure out what I wanted to do with my life, I had an easy answer: I was going to be a writer.

Surprisingly, my family was OK with that. Probably because my previous aspiration was being a Broadway singer. Nothing like setting the bar for making a decent living reeeeally low to make things like writing seem like a solid career choice.

And it worked. I definitely wasn't making the big bucks right out of college (hello, general assignment reporter at my hometown weekly newspaper!), but I made a living. Since then, my skills as a writer have always been a part of my job regardless of where my career path has gone (and yes, it's been a pretty windy road).

But the more I wrote to work, the less I wrote for fun. And a few years ago, I pretty much stopped altogether. It happened before I had my son, so I can't completely blame it on mommy-brain (which is my excuse for pretty much everything in life).

I'm not sure what prompted me to take up writing  again. Maybe it was because I started reading again; maybe it's because I'm happy again; maybe it's because I'm to a point where I have too many dreams to keep track of in my head anymore.

But I'm writing again. And it's fun (and hard). And it's not earth-shattering or serious (except when it is) or even close to being something like done — but I'm writing again!