Why a blog?

Why not a blog?

I’ve always thought I’d like to write. Not professionally, but just as a creative outlet. I’m not going to create the next Great Canadian Novel. This isn’t a new desire. In fact, it goes all the way back to grade school.

Miss Prescott taught a combined grade 1, 2 & 3 class, the only classroom in the whole school with 3 grades. As the “older” students in the class, the grade 3’s were given more freedom to work independently while Miss Prescott worked with the younger children. I was in grade 3. Each Monday, Miss Prescott assigned us work for each subject to be completed by Friday. We were free to work on whichever task we liked at any time, so long as we completed them all by the end of the week. One of the tasks every week was to write a short story.

Ah, the short story. While most of the kids would turn in a two, maybe three page story, written double spaced in big letters, I always went for more. I would turn in 10, 15 or 20 page novellas with lots of characters and tangents. I put a lot of time into my stories, so much that I often didn’t complete the other assignments. Miss Prescott would often sit me down, tell me how good my stories were, but I had to finish my other work. By the end of the school year, I wasn’t allowed to work on my story until I showed her that everything else was done. This only served to make me rush through the other subjects so I could start writing.

I don’t know if my stories were any good, although creative writing was my highest mark in grade 3. Unfortunately the stories weren’t saved, so I can’t go back to read them now. But I know I enjoyed dreaming up those imaginary worlds and filling them with characters. Ok, I’m sure my character development was lacking, and my worlds were probably simplistic, but to an 8 year old that didn’t matter. I simply enjoyed letting my imagination spill out onto the paper.

I didn’t continue with my writing after grade 3. It wasn’t required in grade 4. All I have written in my adult life is articles or trip reports for photography newsletters. But every time I’ve written one of those articles, I’ve enjoyed the experience and have always been left with the thought, “I should do more of this.” But I haven’t.

So why a blog?

Do I expect to build a large following of readers? Nope. Do I expect to hand out words of advice that will change someone’s life? Nope (but it’ll be a great bonus if I do). I’m starting this blog simply because I want to write, and I want to get better at writing. If no-one reads it, that’s fine. But I want to do it.

That’s why a blog.