Wednesday, May 6, 2015

Why Did I Start Blogging



Why Did I Start Blogging?

I was asked that question this morning, and now I’m stuck.

Why did I?

You other writers out there, don’t you sometime feel that your voice doesn’t matter?

Who wants to read you anyway?

And why am I doing this?

When I was fresh out of high school, or maybe still in high school, it was so long ago my memory has rusted; I took the Famous Artists correspondence course. In the course someone spoke of  “The Painter with the Pen.” They were speaking of pen and ink drawings, and although I loved oil painting, and even more water color, this painter with a pen idea stuck. That’s what I wanted to be.

In college there were a slug of artists more skilled than me—and taking biology I made more drawings of various microbes, cells, and plants than you could shake a stick at. I really didn’t care if I made drawings anymore. Good thing I didn’t fancy myself as a writer then, but it was then I found I liked writing papers. You figure.

It took me years to get a psychiatrist’s words out of my head, “Writing is self-aggrandizement,” he said. With that statement he wiped literature into an ego trip. And I suppose he could have said the same about any other artistic endeavor.

And then there is that other fellow (Bulwer-Lytton 1839) who said, “The pen is mightier than the sword.”

I think I’ll go with the second fellow.

Why do we write, paint, garden, make mud balls, beautify our homes, play a musical instrument, sing, build, carve, sculpt, go fishing, do calligraphy, write letters, cook fantastic meals, perfect our sport?

We are all artists at heart, we just need to find our venue.

So why am I blogging? I don’t know. It seemed like a good idea at the time. I like to write. I wanted to reach out to people. I want to make a difference.

When my second daughter was in the first grade I asked myself what I wanted to be when I grew up.

“A writer,” I said. “If I had anything to write.”

But I began. I put words on a page…and blogging seemed natural since I am a cryptic sort, who likes to make black splotches on paper.


You will never Find the Time—Make it