For weeks now, since January first to be exact, I have been trying to decide how to start this blog. First time blogger anxiety. It is the first piece of my Happiness Project, and something I have wanted to do for myself for a long time.
I have written and rewritten this piece countless times, but it was never quite right. And then I happened upon a book by Verlyn Klinkenborg, who said in regards to writing:
"When students are free to write anything they want,
What they write first are pieces they hope look
like something they saw published somewhere
About subjects they believe are pre-authorized
Because someone has already written about them
In pieces they hoped looked like something
they saw published somewhere.
A first piece of that kind is a tacit way of taking
shelter under the authority of someone
else's perceptions."
I'm pretty sure he was talking to me. What I wanted most from this first post was for it to be memorable...eloquent...now I just want it to be finished.
Verlyn, who has become a dear friend in my mind, suggested that a first step in becoming a writer is to become a noticer. He said that the act of noticing "is about letting yourself out into the world, rather than siphoning the world into you in order to transmute it into words."
I'm definitely sure he was talking to me. And so I am "letting myself out into the world" to notice...life.
I'm not sure where it will lead, but I do know that it is time for me to rise and shine.
