The Art of Writing Part 1

So I'm sure you're probably wondering how I wanted to be a writer. It's a question I get asked by people occasionally but it's one I never really knew the answer to. If you guys could have seen me in high school, I had no clue that I'd be so in love with writing like I am now.

Writing was something I really fell into accidentally. It started as a hobby with journals and then it evolved to poetry and now its blogs/mini-essays/articles. Throw in the fact that I'm a very cerebral person who thinks a lot and soon it became natural.

I've always been a heavy reader since I was 2. I'd read the back of license plates and say it back to Mom in my car seat. When I got to preschool, the older kids would ask me to read the namebrands on their outfits and I'd do it - not knowing they'd be getting a kick out of it.


I always kept journals, mainly because Doug from that Nickelodeon cartoon did it. But my love of reading/writing wasn't cultivated really until high school when my 9th grade English teacher (who was also my 10th) had us reading for various book reports and honors assignments. It was my first exposure to classics like Shakespeare and Animal Farm. I'd get more exposure my junior year when I read Scarlet Letter for the first time and became a fan of Nathaniel Hawthorne - his imagery, storytelling and fascination with the past stuck with me.

Junior year, I began writing poetry. Every year, my English honors teacher (R.I.P. Mrs. Smith) made us write something for our literary magazine and that year I wrote the poem that started it all off "Innocence" - my ode about breaking out of my shell. It was simple, conversational and based on the feedback I got, I started writing more often and by senior year I had a book of poems. It was something I kept doing for the next few years and occasionally I still write here and there.

Too bad it didn't translate to loving my papers.

In school, I was more comfortable in math and history than with English. But as one of my oldest classmates would tell me, you can't do anything majoring in that except teaching. Outside of poetry, my high school papers were thoughtful but not sharp. I was somewhat okay with analysis but it definitely didn't come easy like math/history.

I looked at writing as a personal outlet, not something I would make a living do. I had no clue what I wanted to do after college but I decided with teaching because I was inspired by those who had shaped me. By my sophomore year, I said why not pursue English because I'd have to be sharp with my writing with whatever job I'd have and I did love reading....five years later, here I am.

If you followed me on Myspace, you know that I started blogging there but it was reluctant. I had no desire to put some stuff on there that could be private. But once I got started, I couldn't stop, it's like I had a disease (c) Slick Rick. I'd debut some new poems as well as find my voice on major issues and it's another reason I drifted from poetry to mini-essays.

Eventually, I started reading some great blogs out there but I was hesitant to join the blogsphere. I worried about finding readers and getting lost in the shuffle because writing isn't just something I do when I'm bored. It's something I take seriously and I wasn't going to do it unless I had a clear vision of how the blog would turn out. By the new year, I made up my mind to start it and here we are.

Part 2: How I became a journalist/sportswriter, my favorite writers and inspirations.