The Whys and Wherefores

I've been thinking over my reasons for starting this blog, and I've decided that it's a creative outlet for me. I enjoyed creative writing in school, and even did a little in Teens Involved when I was in high school, but apart from keeping journals here and there over the years, it's not something I've pursued. Pursued isn't a great word; I don't have any big ambitions or anything, so maybe I should say kept up with or blundered along at. Ick. Too many dangling prepositions. But you know what I mean.

When my kids were really small, there was not a lot of time for creative pursuits. And really, there was no energy, either. Caring for a young family tends to suck the creative juices right out of you, at least some of the time. Interestingly though, old emails that I sent to my sisters at that time in my life almost read like a blog. They're full of cute and not-so-cute anecdotes about the kids, rants about things in general, and sometimes downright hilarious narratives of day-to-day happenings. There were also the terse, panicky emails that basically said something like "PRAY FOR ME TODAY...I FEEL LIKE THROTTLING SOMEONE!!".

For a while, any creative writing opportunities were generally seized while transcribing medical consultation notes, which is my part-time, home-based occupation. I'm a stickler for good grammar, and so I would correct improper tenses, over-use of commas, and just plain awkward/run-on sentences. Not a lot of opportunity to be terribly creative, however.

So here I am. I'm still emailing my sisters, still making my doctors sound better, and even trying to help my kids write better stuff for school projects. This blog isn't literature, by any stretch of the imagination, but that really isn't my goal. I'm enjoying the whole process of taking an idea and wrestling with it until I can put something on the page that I'm proud of. Or at least, something I won't barf over when I come back to read it later on. :)