behold, a post!

I have not written on this blog in over a year. I apologize for the long silence.

The reasons are simple, if a bit over-used and excuse like in nature. I will not claim I was too busy to post, or that I have had so much writing to do off the blog that I did not have the energy to come up with something else for here. I have not. My writing last year was minimal for school, and over the summer I did basically none.

Try as I might, I could not have ideas for topics. This is always my problem. That is why I like school so much: it gives me information and instructs me to compile it with some stuff of my own in a paper. Under the guidelines of assignment requirements, my technical writing skill and word creativity flourish.

Nothing excites my brain like fixing grammar, and exchanging over-used and weak words for stronger, more interesting ones. I love to walk through a sentence and figure out how to strengthen it and clarify its meaning. I enjoy changing words in hopes that my reader will catch my interest and want to keep reading.

Last year, none of my classes except my writing class assigned papers. In my writing class, we did not read or study anything except how to write, and my teacher did not assign topics. This made the class extremely difficult for me, and highlighted clearly for me that my major weakness came from a lack of ideas. By the end of the class, I hated writing and forgot why I ever thought I loved it. I just wanted to turn in my weekly assignments and be done.

All summer I did not write. I tried occasionally, but nothing came of it. I still lacked ideas, and without purpose there could be no words. Although life seemed normal enough, I knew I was losing my skill for lack of practice, and I felt a deeper loss from having no creative outlet. I cannot draw or play music or anything else artistic, and my creativity is minimal, making writing the only thing I have.

I started college a little less than a month ago, and I turned in my first college essay today. At first the task of writing scared me because I have had so little success the past several months. But as I sat there answering the questions in the assignment, something happened. I woke up. Everything around me came alive again. I wanted to communicate. I wanted to see things and write about them. I wanted to use words, and use them well.

This wish to learn and create and write has stuck with me all day. I do not see how I went so long without writing, and I hope I do not let it happen again. But topics are still my weak point, and that is where this blog comes in.

Your turn: if anyone still reads this thing, and I don't blame you if you stopped during my long unexplained absence, post in the comments something you want me to write about. I make no time frame promises, but I will try to get to everything as I  can. And I will try not to randomly disappear for months upon months without warning.

If nobody comments anything, I'll just keep doing school assignments and whatever nonsense my brain can cough up, but my writing really is much better when it has good ideas behind it.

Well, that's about it. Have an excellent weekend and I hope to see responses! =)


Happily writing again,
Kristin