Writing and Blogs

Once upon a time, a young girl named Shelly read a lot of books. Then she created a character and thought it was a good idea to write her own book. She spent all of her elementary and middle school years writing it. She officially finished it but had no idea how to publish it or do anything else with it, so she set it aside.

Yes, that is me. I did, in fact, write my first book when I was in middle school. I remember every day after school, I would sit down in my mother’s kitchen, ignore the world around me, and write. I had no clue how to publish it or even how to talk to anyone about it. My mother took up writing when I was in my early teens and completed her work as well, but didn’t know how to publish it either.

My mother and I spent years going to different writers’ conferences just to try to understand. I even wrote to Anne McCaffrey and told her about my stories, and her advice was simply, “write.” Now that I look back at my life and read short stories by Anne McCaffrey, I often wonder why I didn’t send any short stories too. Then I remember—I didn’t know how back then.

Now that I know, I will be picking up my stories that I have been creating since I was nine years old. I always wanted my parents to come in and tell me bedtime stories, but they never did, so I made my own bedtime stories instead. I told Anne McCaffrey about my life, and I will go back to writing when the time is right.

There are so many types of writing—storytelling books, playwriting scripts for TV or movies. I read everything, and I even created my own Highlander character. I wrote to the creators of Highlander, but I never heard back, which was a bummer.

Then life took over, and I struggled. I forgot all about wanting to be a writer until I was introduced to blogging by Kristin Hanes of The Wayward Home her course Niche Sites Made Easy. I learned a little about blogging from her, and then another friend helped me approach writing from a different angle. That same person said I wasn’t good at creative writing. So I decided, being me, I would push myself to learn blogging and started working on music reviews for LTATM. I also brought in an editor to help with proofreading.

When I started writing those music reviews, the memory of wanting to be a writer came back. So now I am writing blogs, and maybe one day I will be able to sit down and write the stories I created when I was nine years old.