Writer's Workshop - What I would be doing

So, I'm taking a deep breath here and venturing into the blog world. Many of my friends have encouraged me to do this over the years. All the while, I was thinking about it, too. And so here I am.

I figured what better way to start than with this?

I had the pleasure of meeting Mama Kat at Bloggy Boot Camp earlier this year. She sat at my table at lunch time and made me feel welcome in a sea of bloggers when I was blogless. I remember her talking about these posts she does, to encourage people to write. My ears perked up. I'm a writer. I'm lucky enough to be a paid journalist. I thought Kat's Writer's Workshops would be a fun way to keep me writing outside of the work I do, which sometimes is a lot more on the editing side of things.

And then I saw the prompts today and thought well, this was meant to be. The question asked if you had to make a career out of whatever you were passionate about at the age of 10, what would it be?

I get to do it every day. I write. Features. News. Columns. When I was 10 I filled notebooks with stories I made up. I wrote about monsters and fairies and all sorts of things I could dream up. A few years later -- I don't remember the exact age -- I interviewed my neighbors as i pretended to be a journalist. A few years later, I did a mock up of my own newspaper in a journalism class. My paper was called The Inside Scoop.

It was in 7th grade that my English teacher told me she thought that some day, some day far away as an adult, I would get paid for my words. It has all come true. I'm not at a big city daily. I don't think you will see "Pulitzer Prize winner" precede my name in my obituary. I've worked in small towns writing about peach festivals and school board meetings. But what I did at 10, I am able to still do. And these days, in the business of journalism, it is a blessing to be able to say that. Thanks for the reminder, Writer's Workshop.