My Origins - Mostly

Today is the Origins Blogfest. In a perfect world with a perfect blogger you should be able to click on that image above an get to the link that explains this blogfest and gives you the list of participants so you can go and read far more interesting Origin Stories than mine. But this ain't a perfect world and I am not, well, let's not even go where no man has gone before, and discuss my blogging abilities. If you want the dope on this particular blogfest go here www.dlcruisingaltitude.blogspot.com Even here DON'T click on the Origins image in the blogpost, BUT go over to the right and click on it there. (After you read Don's awesome Origins Story, of course.) Got that!


Anyway, I wrote my Origins Blog Post about ten days ago and it was all ready to go, all I had to do was hit the publish button. But, then I got cold feet. Now those of you who follow me know that I'm more than willing to take my clothes off in public and tell you what a goof I've been over some stupid thing, but I decided I was not ready to be that NAKED in front of you and tell you all about my life.  


How many of you can tell me the exact moment you grew up, well, maybe grew up is too broad a term, but the exact moment you knew things were never going to be the same for you on most levels.(This is without having anything to do with sex. Please!) I can, but I'm not ready to do that yet. So instead I'll give you part of my origins story. The most recent part. Sorry if it's not too exciting, maybe some day I'll be adult enough to tell you the rest, just not today. 


Since that moment in my life when I knew nothing would ever be the same, I started writing. Journals and notes mostly. I never showed it to anyone. A lot of it I did not reread, but I did want to record it. Record myself and my feeling, emotions the things I had witnessed. You know, it's easy to retell a story, it ain't so easy to recapture the essence of the story, the time, exactly how you felt all of the emotions involved. Anyway...I had all these thoughts and notebooks full of just that.


When I moved to the Caribbean - on to the next adventure - I decided I needed  to do something different. I decided I wanted to write. I read voraciously. I read everything; junk fiction,(this would include newspapers and news magazines) good fiction, classics, non-fiction, how-to, heck when I run out of reading material I turn to the Internet or even the back of cereal boxes. I also read the Scriptures. Surprised? That's probably an entirely different blog post.


Anyway, I started thinking I could probably write better than a lot of what I read. So I went back to college. I'm always going back to college. I probably have enough credits for three degrees, but I don't have enough in any particular discipline to qualify. Anyway, this time it was writing. You will note I didn't bother with any grammar courses, particularly punctuation.


Currently I have written three full length novels. I'm not sure what to do with them.I've written some 'shorts' for contests where mostly I was quashed pretty badly.(Maybe,not as bad as it felt, but I like that word- quashed.)

Recently,I entered a short story contest,1000 words or less (not exactly my forte) with a deadline of 1/30/2012. The topic was cities. Capture the metropolitan experience. I dug out my old notes and wrote a piece from my experience. From my emotion. From my heart.It may have been my best work yet. Could this be where writing wants me to go? I don't believe in coincidence.


I don't write for money,(HA, ha, ha) I would take it but, I write for me. Me, I would like to make an impact with what I write. Not just an impact on your wallet but on your mind. This particular short story and something else I read recently, got me to thinking. Is it possible that writing fiction based on history, my personal history, would encourage people to do research? To check my facts.To look into the past with a hope of making the future better. Noble thought, this. 


Isn't that what writing, good writing, should be -- Noble thoughts put down on paper, naked for the scrutiny of the people. Maybe that's a whole new Origins Post for next year.We'll see.