Follow Your Bliss

I have this pinned to a board that sits in front of my desk. It spoke to me. It said, you have to find what you like. You have to find it, grab it, and eat, sleep and dream it. 

The funny thing about bliss is that it can be anything, and to me it meant one thing and one thing only: story. I love everything involving story. I love words and pictures and music and dancing. All of which can tell a story, and in a myriad of different ways. 

The other part about bliss is that it needs to be something that comes easy, like breathing. Something that you don't have to spend a tremendous amount of time thinking about for it to happen. That's where I came back to writing. It was honestly my first love. Even before art and learning how to draw and paint. I remember when I was in third or fourth grade I started keeping a journal after I received a beautiful hardcover diary with a lock on it for Christmas. I wrote in it almost everyday, and over the years I have filled tomes which now have been carefully packed away in a large storage container.

After looking at this quote everyday for a least a month, it dawned on me... I have to write. I'd written a few short stories and a slew of half-started picture book texts over the years since graduating college, but I felt like I hadn't really written. Nothing I had done was something I still loved once I'd finished it - some of them I actually hated and prefer never to resurrect their skeletal remains. So not only did I have to write, but I had to write something I wanted to read. I needed to write a fantasy story. So I did. I sat down and wrote, then wrote some more, then the whole thing came pouring out of me over the course of a month or so. Then I was done - or so I thought. 

So, here is where I begin my journey as a writer and an aspiring author. I hope one day the random things I'll post here may be of some encouragement to future authors and writers and artist storytellers of the world.