A journey into the writing world...

So - here it is - nearly a month since my last posting! To say life has been crazy would be a gross understatement. Some of it has been my choosing, but mostly - not so much.

This sums it up - head in the dinosaur's mouth?!

I have been waiting for one day, ONE day, to pass without some sort of drama - whether injury, sickness, trauma, or emotional upheaval - ONE day to come and go without something derailing life. Today is already shot - but maybe Thursday will break the 29 day streak? 

Enough complaining - onto the crazy of my choosing! Writing. Deadlines. There were many. Honestly, though, what should have been a foreboding forging of words, finger strokes on the keyboard, ended up being a much needed refuge from reality. Leaving the chaos around me, I could slip into another world, alive with characters requiring creation and settings to observe. For those hours (or moments - unfortunately motherhood doesn't come with a "pause" button, rendering children independent and without some constant need), I could travel far away from the disaster bombs exploding around me. 

All that (finally) leads me into the topic titling this blog entry - A journey into the writing world. I have plans to discuss publishing in an upcoming blog, so the journey I speak of isn't about that. It is the oftentimes slow process of getting to that point. I have discussed editing, extra readers' eyes and ears, and a plethora of other things concerning writing - but this is about "putting it out there." Blogging, for instance. It is a bare display of our thoughts and words - the way we say things. I have been writing since I was old enough to hold a pencil and poorly spell words, but I rarely showed anything I wrote to others. I suspect some of that was due to privacy and the desire to freely put pen to paper, without fear of who might read or judge. As a child, poor topics and designs can be chalked up to being, well, childish. But for the adult? Not so much. I had no problem with sharing thesis papers in college - they were topical, focused, with a purpose. There were criteria that had to be met, specifications. Creative writing is very different, though. It is what comes from the soul - all mistakes, misconceptions, quirks, and the likes included. Again, bare. Blogging was my first attempt to step outside my comfort zone, revealing words and thoughts to an unknown audience.

Next, the world of writing competitions and submissions to magazines. Those were the deadlines I mentioned. Two poems, two short stories, one narrative non-fiction, and one novel, to be exact. Being these only accept unpublished stories, I decided to submit something different to each one. I truly enjoyed the challenge and flexing my mental muscles of creativity!  

If you are interested in finding out more about upcoming competitions, the Poets & Writers website is a great place to start. Their calendar link is: https://www.pw.org/submission_calendar

Blogging, competitions (with obvious hope for catching the eye of some readers), and publications in magazines, even small ones, all create a writing portfolio - more importantly, a public one - something that will be a useful tool for publishing!

So - are YOU ready to step outside your comfort zone?

(Sorry, Shane, but this was the best picture with a skeptical challenge look that I could find! :) )