A few days ago, I was writing my “About the Author” for my upcoming novel, The Keeper. While typing it up, I included the fact that I have been writing for a long time and that I’ve only recently gotten back in to my writing roots.
This made me think about some of the other things I’ve written in my (nearly) 30 years of existence. Blog posts about my weight, my grad school experience, my move across the country, my move to a NEW country, little novellas about my own life when I was in high school (because it allowed me to imagine a cool life when I was always kind of an outcast), journals about the boys that I liked and the friendships that hurt me, along with more academic stuff like newspaper articles in college and published papers in grad school.
It actually made me pretty emotional to think about, because I realized that I have written the most often during times when I have felt the most worthless, or when I was going through the most turmoil, regardless of what the actual writing was about.
It’s almost like I want to take the angst in my own life and manipulate words and phrases into a way that I can express those feelings – even if what gets printed on paper isn’t negative or angst-filled.
My sister is currently on an international trek with a missions organization, and she has taken up blogging and journaling (although I know she journaled a bit before as well) to communicate her experiences, and reading her words makes my heart sing. Because I know in the depths of who I am that my sister and I are very alike in this way.
We want to take what we are feeling and put it on paper so that someone ELSE can be positively influenced.
In her case, she wants to share her love for Jesus, for her creator, for the blessings she has been given. She wants to highlight her downfalls and her worries and her fears and bumps and scrapes… but also acknowledge how her faith in Christ has helped to lift her up and changes the lives of those around her.
In my case, I want to share my desire for every person to be able to find true happiness and love and a life filled with worth. I want to highlight that weakness and hard times do not mean that your life is meaningless or that you don’t bring value to those around you. I want to use my words to create life and showcase love.
I cherise reading what my sister has to say, because it gives me insight into her soul – because that’s where she writes from.
She writes from her depths. She writes from her heart and her love and her courage.
And I hope that my writing and stories can convey even a fraction of what hers do.
