The Long Road Back

"All that is gold does not glitter, not all those who wander are lost; the old that is strong does not wither, deep roots are not reached by the frost. From the ashes a fire shall be woken, a light from the shadows shall spring; renewed shall be the blade that was broken, the crownless again shall be king."

                                                                                                                      ~JRR Tolkien Lord of the Rings

It's been awhile since I have blogged or wrote anything for that matter. It isn't that I haven't had anything to say or that I didn't want to write. I simply was attacked by a bad case of the shoulds. Many of you know exactly what I'm talking about, I should clean the should, I should work out or at least jump on the treadmill for thirty minutes and most of all I should write or blog today. Like many with "authority issues", I instantly rebel against anything I should do and quickly succumb to another dreaded malady,  the Sparklies, which for those of you don't know, is when you are fascinated but whatever you aren't doing at the time.

Anyway, after a while I fell into the trap of thinking I couldn't write or maybe shouldn't write. I sat back and supported many wonderful authors, celebrated their latest releases and although I truly was happy for them (and still am) I was jealous. It is the plain and simple truth. I just couldn't understand how it was so easy for them. How the stories just seemed to flow from a unseen tap. Little did I understand at the time, that ALL authors struggle. Whether it is with self-doubt, plots, stories ideas, revisions, whatever, they all have their moments. We often don't see the downs or maybe they are there but we don't take them to heart, but they have them all the same. In the end, I had to be honest with myself, I just wasn't devoted to my craft. I had a million excuses/distractions, but the simple fact was I didn't write because I was afraid.

I was afraid I would never be the writer I want to be. I still struggle to capture the story I see in my mind. It wasn't until I had another bad workshop experience that I saw I had actually grown some as a writer over the past year. I won't name names by berating a workshop or  instructor but suffice it to say their instructing technique and my learning style were vastly different. This time instead of being thrown into a "I quit" or "I can't write funk" for weeks (months) I simply shrugged and realized we just didn't click. Now, for those of you that really know me, understand what a big accomplishment this was for me (LoL), but it truly was groundbreaking moment.

So, now I'm back; back to writing, back to being a supportive friend and contributor and hopefully back to entertaining you with my quirky sense of humor and often odd outlook on life. I will be posting ever Friday and hope that we can have some fun and make this adventure to publication an interesting journey. I will be trying on many different genres and posting excerpts for your pleasure and opinion.

Now let's see who read this whole post. I will give away a $25 Amazon gift card to one lucky person who leaves a comment. To be entered you must say what your favorite genre is (ie: mysteries, thrillers, chicklit, paranormal, erotica etc) before midnight on Thursday the 24th. The winner will be drawn at random and will be announced on May 25th.