This is Not for You (Yes, I Mean YOU)

These past couple of weeks have been a little difficult to say the least, and my blog has been suffering. I heard something yesterday from a former editor of the Baltimore Sun that put things into perspective for me, though. He said "The difference between a writer and an editor is this: a writer writes for himself. An editor writes for someone else. When you write for yourself, it takes away all the pressure and expectation." I like that. I'll admit it. Sometimes I write on here, and as I'm writing I'm thinking, "This is silly, nobody wants to read me rambling about my kids pooping all over the house, me forgetting it's a vacation day, or someone they don't know dying." I think I'm not witty enough, or serious enough. My stories are not new, every mother goes through this. Well, you know what? I enjoy writing about those things. It gives me an outlet for my thoughts. So what if my blog is just one big brainstorm, and I never come up with the perfect title, or if my blog name is unique enough. Am I going to get down on myself if I don't post every day? No. I'm not going to be afraid to write about what I want, the way I want to write it. I'm not going to worry about how many readers I have or how many comments I get. Not that I was really worried about it, but I'll admit I started wondering if anyone out there liked my writing.



Writing. For me. I've always liked writing. I felt at home in English class. My senior English teacher in high school was the classic English teacher. Strict, no nonsense, even a little bitchy (okay ALOT bitchy.) She used to yell at me for chewing on my pen. Seriously, she was like a drill sargent. I, on the other hand, was not the prize pupil. I won't fake modesty and say that I wasn't smart. It wasn't that. I just didn't really care about school. Homework was not a priority. And I was a little bitchy myself. Needless to say, Mrs. Kirby and I clashed once or twice. Yet, she was my favorite teacher ("you can't start a sentence with a conjunction!") Well, I guess you shouldn't have taught me about Poetic License! It irritated me to no end that she detested the word "got" or "made"; she absolutely would not allow us to describe something as "nice" or "good." I got (that one's for you, Mrs. K) pretty good grades in high school. One or 2 C's out of pure laziness... or something a little more passive aggressive - but we'll not get into the psychology of the whole thing (Private Christian school my entire life, etc.)



Rewind to Composition 101. Anyone remember? I don't know how your teacher did it. Mine would set a timer and we'd brainstorm. Probably for five minutes, we'd write whatever popped into our heads. I loved this part. Just write and write. I'd usually start with a few descriptions of the people around me "Billy has the most annoying reading voice, why do they always pick him to read aloud? And why does he always WANT to read aloud?" Inevitably I'd find something to write about amidst the rubble that was my brainstorming paper and I'd focus on that - but only because we HAD to. Secretly, I hated when that timer went off. For those five minutes I felt so alive! I would write and write until my wrist throbbed in pain, massage it a little bit, and write some more. I didn't want to have to fence in my thoughts, corral them into a masterpiece. That was too much work!



And so, about 10 years later, I started a blog.