i’ve been tagged by amity to do a writing meme, where i list five writing strengths.

this is hard. it makes me uncomfortable, this meme, because in spite of my love of writing, i definitely don’t think of myself as a writer, and i don’t often feel like i “write” here. this blog certainly isn’t substantial enough, weighty enough to qualify as “writing”. writing is a serious undertaking. writing involves angst, sturm und drang, great emotional upheaval. writing is the product of a compulsion to create, to give birth.

writing is what writers do – and i am not a writer.

so with that disclaimer out of the way, here’s the meme.

i don’t shy away from emotion. my best posts have a piece of my heart woven through them.

i bring the past into the present. i often feel the best way to illustrate the here and now is by delving into memory.

variety is the spice of life. sometimes i have long, rambling, deep thoughts – and sometimes it’s a flippant one-liner. like the box of chocolates, you never know what you’re going to get – and that keeps things interesting.

i overuse the underappreciated spaced en dash. really, my sentences just tend to run on, and so i use dashes to pretend it’s intentional – like so.

i’m unafraid to evolve in the public eye. reading my earliest blog posts just makes me cringe. of course, i didn’t imagine anyone actually read any of it then, so i didn’t take it seriously. some days, i still don’t. but knowing there are actual readers, real people out there, has made me stretch myself into something bigger and better than i thought i could be. and that’s made me a better “writer”. and on my trip last year, in my earnest desire to capture everything i was seeing and experiencing, i began something that may one day turn into a book, of sorts – if only just for me. maybe.

maybe i am a writer, after all.

feist – secret heart

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