Image courtesy Linds via Flickr
At the age of 45, writer Regina Brett wrote a column for the Cleveland Plain Dealer listing 45 lessons that life had taught her thus far. As a breast cancer survivor, many of those lessons were learned the hard way. Five years later she added five more lessons rounding her list up to 50 and turned her popular list into a book called God Never Blinks. I found her list to be entertaining, inspiring and thought provoking. I thought I would go through each of her lessons learned and write about how that lesson has or has not come up in my own life, now that I am 40 and feel old enough to have finally learned something.
"When it comes to going after what you love in life, don't take no for an answer."
~ LESSON #20
I love to write. I really really do. I learned to read when I was just a tiny tyke on my mother's lap. And my love of written words and stories grew from there. When I was in elementary school I loved writing my own stories and creating my own bound books from them. When I was a disgruntled teen uprooted yet again to a new home, in a new region at a new high school with no friends I used that love to create poems that berated all that was unfair in my life. When I moved on to college I loved keeping a journal of all the experiences I encountered in that big wide world. Then as my courses advanced, I had to do nothing but write. Paper after paper on anything and everything whether I loved it or not. I did not love that. So I didn't write anything for a long time after that.
Almost 15 years later I decided to start writing again. I wanted to convey how sports, and baseball in particular, shaped who I was during all stages of my life. I don't really know what inspired that goal, but it took root in my brain and wouldn't go away until I started putting the words on the screen. And so I wrote out a story - many of which I later posted here in blog entry form via my Ovah The Monstah series. I wrote it because I wanted to, and remembered how much I loved writing. How much it had shaped my life as much as baseball had.
Rather than continuing to write and write and write I took a break and remembered how much I loved to read and read and read what other people had written too. It was this craving for books and people to discuss them with that brought me to the blogosphere and resulted in The Bumbles Blog. Before I even realized it, I had found that writing outlet again and began to fall in love with words yet again.
In addition to reading, writing and baseball I also love journeys. Road trips, vacations, get-aways, jaunts, local exploration. Travel - whether far away or around the corner. I thought I should find a way to write about that. And so when I discovered the travel search engine, UpTake, and their family of travel related blogs I decided I could write for them. That I should write for them. That I would write for them. And then my e-mail inquiry came back with a big "I am on sabbatical for months without access to messages." A few months later I tried again and found someone else to e-mail about my exuberance. This time I got a response that my timing was perfect. They were just given the green light to hire a few new bloggers. My region was uncovered. Could I send them some writing samples?
My whole life has been nothing but writing samples. But since I didn't think they wanted to see my beloved story from 5th grade about a mole who needed glasses, I sent them links to my blog posts instead. And they liked them. They hired me. And pay me to write. A goal I never set out to accomplish but one that once I saw its potential, I knew I needed to attain.
I am still trying to figure out a way to do nothing but get paid to write. It is something I have researched. Prepared for. Now I need to implement it. Because it is what I love to do. Not all of the inquiries I make for other paid writing gigs are well received. Sometimes I'm not even sure they are received at all. But that will not keep me from trying. And from making it work. I may not get to write for them - but I will always write for me. My love. And someone out there will appreciate that and want me to write for them too.
Almost 15 years later I decided to start writing again. I wanted to convey how sports, and baseball in particular, shaped who I was during all stages of my life. I don't really know what inspired that goal, but it took root in my brain and wouldn't go away until I started putting the words on the screen. And so I wrote out a story - many of which I later posted here in blog entry form via my Ovah The Monstah series. I wrote it because I wanted to, and remembered how much I loved writing. How much it had shaped my life as much as baseball had.
Rather than continuing to write and write and write I took a break and remembered how much I loved to read and read and read what other people had written too. It was this craving for books and people to discuss them with that brought me to the blogosphere and resulted in The Bumbles Blog. Before I even realized it, I had found that writing outlet again and began to fall in love with words yet again.
In addition to reading, writing and baseball I also love journeys. Road trips, vacations, get-aways, jaunts, local exploration. Travel - whether far away or around the corner. I thought I should find a way to write about that. And so when I discovered the travel search engine, UpTake, and their family of travel related blogs I decided I could write for them. That I should write for them. That I would write for them. And then my e-mail inquiry came back with a big "I am on sabbatical for months without access to messages." A few months later I tried again and found someone else to e-mail about my exuberance. This time I got a response that my timing was perfect. They were just given the green light to hire a few new bloggers. My region was uncovered. Could I send them some writing samples?
My whole life has been nothing but writing samples. But since I didn't think they wanted to see my beloved story from 5th grade about a mole who needed glasses, I sent them links to my blog posts instead. And they liked them. They hired me. And pay me to write. A goal I never set out to accomplish but one that once I saw its potential, I knew I needed to attain.
I am still trying to figure out a way to do nothing but get paid to write. It is something I have researched. Prepared for. Now I need to implement it. Because it is what I love to do. Not all of the inquiries I make for other paid writing gigs are well received. Sometimes I'm not even sure they are received at all. But that will not keep me from trying. And from making it work. I may not get to write for them - but I will always write for me. My love. And someone out there will appreciate that and want me to write for them too.
