My mother says that I used to love having stories read to me and looking at books when I was a baby. She says that she’d taught me how to trace my own name when I was three years old, and that by the time I was four I could write my name and other small words that I recognized and could spell. When I was five, I was awarded with my very first library card, and Mom and I made it a weekly ritual to visit the library and check out books for both of us.
When I was seven years old, my parents bought me a sky blue journal with Mickey and Minnie Mouse, Donald, Goofy and Pluto on the front cover. I filled pages of this book with my very own fictional stories, poetry and illustrations in vibrant Crayola colors.
Throughout my elementary school years, I’d written numerous short stories, often with illustrations and a “book cover” of my own design, as well as poems and essays. I also enjoyed verbal expression, and won third place in a poetry reciting competition and first place in a pageant where verbal poetic expression was my talent piece. Once I got to high-school, my stories grew longer and I added school and church plays to the list of works I created for fun or shared with my peers to act out. I won book report and essay writing contests, enrolled in advanced placement English class, and did lots of reading and writing instead of hanging out at the mall with girlfriends.
Who was a geek? Certainly not I – I was cool! Way cool! Even though I was always the Teacher’s Pet. And played in the high-school band. And orchestra. And was a member of the drama club. And couldn’t dance. And didn’t put out.
Er em. But anyways.
Even though I loved to write, when I got to college I chose to major in Computer Science and Engineering instead of English or the arts. Why? Because I was (and still am) fascinated by computers and video games and so I really wanted to learn how to write computer programs. That, and I wanted a degree that would actually allow me to earn enough to pay back all those student loans! There was no guarantee that I’d make a single dime writing fiction.
So I strayed away from personal creative writing, only using that skill for college essays and other papers, putting all of my mental energy into my major and spending my free time learning to surf the web, studying, working part-time as technical support and wooing my future (now current) husband.
Now here I am. Going on 31 years old, married, mother of a three-year-old son and a soon-to-be-born (or at least I’m hoping it’s soon), a Systems Design Analyst and IT Program Manager for a fortune 500 company, who still has the itch to write but has never been published. But I would like to be.
There’s no time like the present, right?
So now I’m ready to attempt to launch a writing career in my spare (a.k.a. “rare”) time, and I decided to create this blog to journal my journey to becoming a successful writer. Will I get a publishing contract? Will I ever earn enough from writing to be able to replace my lucrative IT career income? Or will I have to accept a lifelong fate of doing the Corporate America dance, and be satiated with system specs, technical documentation and power point presentations being the extent of my writing success?
We shall see! And I shall write! And blog!
Note: This is the intro and true “first” entry I created for this blog. All older posts are excerpts from a personal journal.
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