I like to call myself an accidental writer.  I didn’t start out wanting to write plays, blog postsr essays, but I always wrote.  I don’t know if I’ve  told you this before, but I, up until recently, had a 3-inch binder full of hand written things on different sizes paper with different incarnations of my handwriting.  It wasn’t like a scrapbook, more of a reminder of what I used to do for fun.  A collection of angsty teen poems that now make me laugh and smile as the memories of those people come flooding back.  This collection is now housed on my hard as I scanned it all to make moving easier and lighter and instead of a binder I now have a collection of tiny notebooks that I bought on sale at Vromans.  I couldn’t pass up the crying tiger.

These notebooks are littered with with half started ideas, and notes from books and websites I have read all in the hopes of finishing something.  I bought four of them in the hopes they would fill quickly with new musings as my hopes to write daily.  Years later I’m finally on my 4th notebook.  It has taken me a long time to get here.  I went through book one the other day and wondered who this author was?  I must have copied “that” from somewhere, I think as I read it.  Who is this person?  Then as I read on, I find the sarcastic humour and inside jokes that I tell and I am reminded that yes, Jennifer you have some moments and why aren’t you sharing this with the world.  What is stopping you?  I also realize that I have to quit thinking of things as accidents.  Writing has obviously always been a part of me, as witnessed in the binder and notebook collection.  I hesitate to call myself a writer because nothing has ever felt finished.  It’s a wonder I finish blog posts. Or maybe I don’t even finish those, come to think of it…Because there is always more to the story that I start writing about and then get caught up in my thoughts and hems and haws and never quite feel complete.  I am getting better.  I think.  Instead of one hapless page of notes, I now try and complete a thought before I stop writing. Maybe I am subconsciously wanting to engage the reader?  Wanting to talk about the world around us in a non-threatening way, and in this digital age it is so much easier to hide behind the anonymity of the internet.  To hide behind an avatar or a picture of you from 5 years ago.  To feel warm and safe when the trolls come out to play.  Maybe that’s why I don’t finish anything?  Because my fear of the discussions I want to have are outweighed by the fear of someone actually reading my stuff…

Yet here I am getting ready to hit “post” on this mishmosh of thoughts.