Writing, My Forever Friend

                                                Write what disturbs you,

what you fear,

what you have not been willing to speak about.

Be willing to be split open.

Natalie Goldberg

Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within

If you have any interest in writing, get your self acquainted with Natalie Goldberg.  She in not only an excellent writer, she is an inspiration to those wanting to write.  While reading her endless material, you instantly feel connected with a personal mentor. 

A few years ago, local writers joined together to form a weekly writer's forum.  Although some of us were strangers to each other, we seemed to bond right away.  All of us liked to write, and we seemed to have a different focus ... fantasy, poetry, memoirs, non-fiction  ... so there was never any competitiveness.  On the contrary, the support we received from each other was amazing. 

While attending the writer's forum a fellow writer Becky, now living in New Zealand, taught me how to set up a blog.  Once I began posting, I never stopped.  I post every day about familiar subjects that randomly appear in that scary place known only to myself ... my mind.

In grade school, I developed the love for writing.  By the summer between 7th and 8th grade, I had written two novels.  In high school, my writing turned very dark and was a more cryptic style of  off-beat poetry.  I only wrote when I found my mind to be in a very dark and lonely place, which unfortunately was often. 

Once in college, my writing expanded.  Even though I had kept diaries since mid-grade school, my writing demanded more and more time and space.  I seemed to write everywhere and anywhere.  I was encouraged by a few professors to take my writing a little more seriously and to focus on journalism.  I graduated with a double major in Psychology-Sociology and used my skills writing case manager notes and court documents.

As the years crept by, I continued my love for writing.  I have numerous journals spanning over my life.  With my love for typing which I developed in high school, the computer took me flying as fast as my fingers could go.  I began printing e-mails of correspondence or articles of interest and saving them in binders.  For seven years, I kept deliberate journals tracking my dreams. 

Smaller journals were wonderful to take on trips or to slide into my purse.  There never seemed to be a question of what to write as much as there was the question of when I could write.  These smaller journals held different writings like quick insights or topics I wanted to follow up on or an author recommended for a great new book.

Now, of course, my iPad has been added to the mix.  It seems to be my forever friend, willing and waiting to just accept what I have to write or to link me to cyber space in quest of something in particular. 

Everyone can write interesting material.  It isn't about sentence structure and punctuations, it is about whatever sits in your soul.  Everyone has something to say and writing is the avenue to say it.  Even if your writing never sees the light of day and is kept locked in a drawer, the words need to sprawl across the page!