Let's Get This Thing Going

Hi. My name is Jodi...and I'm a writer.

Did that just sound like the start of an AA meeting? Because that's what writing should feel like to you. Something that you need to do. If not an addiction, an act of completion.

When I was 22 years old, some quoted -- or claimed to quote -- Joyce Carol Oates saying "If you can stop writing, you should." I've since learned that this quote may never have come from her, and after ages of fruitless googling, I haven't been able to find anyone willing to claim it.

Yet it was a seed of doubt thrown out in one of my writing classes. And in me, it found fertile soil. And you know what? I found out I could stop writing. For years, I managed it. I cooked gourmet meals. I learned to be incoherent in both French and Spanish. I taught myself to knit and crochet. I was a ball of frantic energy. And I never wrote a word.

It wasn't until a triplet pregnancy landed me with 14 weeks of bed rest that blogging reignited the old urge to make black marks on white paper. It was as if the almost 20 year lull never happened.

In looking back on some of those first blog posts, I cringe at the elaborate language, the excessive use of adjectives, and the rusty grammar. But my writing muscles had essentially been in a coma since that day in college 20 years ago when I let my insecurities win. Although I had finally put fingers on keys once more, as a writer-athlete I had to crawl before I could walk and walk before I could run.

Today, I'm proud to have one published story under my belt and am more than ready to repeat it. But I'm outlining a novel based on a second short story as well. I guess you could say I've completed a 5K and am working my way up to my first marathon.

What about you? Did the doubts get to you? Have you stepped away from the keyboard or the notebook? Maybe it's time to take back that thing that mattered most to you. Sure...you'll be rusty and maybe a little awful to begin with. But crawl for a little, walk a little more...then come take a run with me. The high is like nothing you've ever known.