Why I Write

By the time I was 10 years old I was a published author.

Ok, OK; so it was printed on a mimeograph machine and displayed in the school's front hallway on Parent's Night, but published is published, amiright?

The poem was written for English class and the 'prompt' was Thanksgiving. In the short time that it was displayed I felt a little thrill of happiness whenever I passed it. It would have been even better if my parents had come to Parent's Night to see it.

Be that as it may- in my eyes it will always remain the first piece I ever wrote. Oh- and that's me in the lead photo: second row, second girl from the right, white hairband and terrible posture to hide a figure that I found embarrassing.

Fast Forward 41 Years

41 years later I decided to stop being embarrassed by things like my figure, my family, my past, my secrets; I turned towards writing and started a blog. Audaciously deciding to go big or stay home, I publicly committed to one post a week during 2014, announcing it in the first post on my new blog.

Throughout the year I wrote about the things that, like the weight I desperately wanted to lose, were packed around my spirit and dragged along beside me every day.

The emotional and physical abuse from my father and his eventual suicide. My brother's alienation from the family and the trauma he and I shared when we were children that may have contributed to his issues. I wrote about work, body positivity, my own insecurities, the failure of my first marriage, sales, falling in love, change, battling eating disorders, family, friendship, and faith.

I learned about myself with each post; I found relief in sharing the deep secrets that burned my throat and had been hidden for so many years. I also found the freedom to define myself FOR myself instead of blindly believing the labels and limits I'd accrued from others over the years.

Being Vocal and Finding My Happy Medium

Seven years after the start of that blog (which concluded at the end of 2014), I found Vocal. In emotional turmoil due to the combined pressures of the pandemic AND closing a start up company a year after going through the bankruptcy of another, I needed the outlet of writing.

Heck; I needed the satisfaction of creating something, and finishing it, and having it STAY when everything around me felt like it was crumbling to ashes. I found much more than that: I found a Community.

At first I revisited some of my blog posts, reworking them, polishing them, and appreciating both the history of the topics and also reflecting on lessons I had learned since writing them.

Then I wrote some poetry, finding again the joy I'd experienced at 11 years old to use words and images to convey emotions and thoughts.

And, after much encouragement from a fellow writer (Thank you, Tom), I wrote my first fiction story. It was published in Families, since Vocal didn't have a Fiction community at that time.

Continuing to write as I turned towards a non-profit career instead of retail, I added writing on the Medium platform. (Pro Tip: Vocal creators can make their creativity do double duty by importing it into Medium. It's only $5 to become a Medium member and why not let all that work earn there, too?)

Specifically because there is no word limit to Medium content, I created quite a number of #OneMinuteReads on Medium concentrating on Leadership, Business Communications, and Sales Coaching. Here's a compilation of the #OneMinuteReads from 2021.

I've used the compilation/index format here on Vocal, too, in this post, which I have pinned to the top of my Vocal profile.

In looking over the poems, articles, and stories that I've written I can see the same themes emerging and the progression of my thoughts and beliefs.

Reading has always been important to me; I've been reading hungrily since I was 7 years old. I'm blessed to discover that, if reading is food for my soul, writing is the air and breath for my spirit.

~

As my Vocal profile states:

It's my time to find and use my voice. Poetry, short stories, memories, and a lot of things I think and wish I'd known a long time ago.

Please leave a comment and share with me: What do YOU know for sure? How are YOU using your voice?