to write

Writing is a gift I give to myself. No matter what I chose to write, be it fiction, poetry, an essay, or a research paper, it is my time when I may choose words and arrange them as I desire.

When I was in elementary school I was a member of the Author of the Month Club and we would each write a book and self-publish it with an Apple IIe (the typesetting came after many drafts by hand), construction paper and rubber cement, the school’s (in my eyes amazing) hot lamination machine, and the colourful spiral binding machine. I loved to write stories and dabbled in poetry. These books entered the school library and when I retrieved them upon elementary school graduation I took delight in seeing names of students who had checked out my book from the library, and hopefully enjoyed it.

Those stories are nothing good, but what else can we expect from a six year old?

I wrote for a few more years but slowly stopped putting writing instrument to paper. I won’t go into why but there are hints of it in my about page. My major declaration for College was chosen as much for the lack of papers than for all other contributing factors.

Over the years, as my professional obligations grew, I took less time to write for myself. I needed the time instead to focus on the essay, the research, the formality.

I began to write here as an exercise to keep words flowing and arranging themselves; it is why words continue to appear here.

I discovered a project that encouraged words to flow quickly to tell a story. I first signed up in 2005 and succeeded that year and the following two in meeting the month long goal. They weren’t good at all, I had written better in 1986. However I kept in mind the following:

They aren’t always good words, but they are words. They are my words. They aren’t always the word I want, but again, they are my words. The order isn’t always what it should be, but again, they are my words. Time and patience will sort it all out.

This year, my words (and typing ability) once again let me write over 50,000 words for the small exercise. I finished on the 27th.

Are they the best words, in the best order, in the best of anything that I’ve ever written? No. But this is the first year that I stopped worrying about the words and let them flow as they once did many years ago and have some sort of story come out. This year, I think that there actually are a few good words in there and maybe one day it will be rearranged and reworked and you will be able to read it, if you want.

So please, if you can, make a donation. My words today are only because they were encouraged over twenty years ago. Help NaNoWriMo adopt a classroom and assist the Young Writers Program. And think, if I hadn’t stopped writing for a few years this post might actually be comprehensible. ;)

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I’m currently listening to 2008-11-16 Flute podcast from Magnatune from the album “Flute podcast from Magnatune.com” by Magnatune and using ecto (an older version) to write this. Why am I sharing any of this? I have no idea.

• Category: write