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I guess I started to write something Friday, but didn't actually write anything.  I'll make up for that now.  I am in a writing group with several friends, and it is exciting to be writing for our Writing 7 class as well as for my own personal development as a writer.  I have written many essays and two theses, and when I was in high school and college, I wrote a lot of poetry.  However, in recent years, I have not written as much as I would have liked to.  I would occasionally write a letter to the editor for a newspaper, and of course I correspond with many people by e-mail.  I love writing hand-written letters, but I do not do it enough.  I have one I wrote, that I need to get into the mail to my great aunt.

I mentioned to some of you that I am writing short stories in Spanish for children.... I will translate one on here soon.

Making time to write

Here I am now, a person who used to want to be a professional writer who is now charged with an advanced writing class.  A teacher who wants to inspire his students to become amazing writers.  My advice is to write every day, even if it's rough, even if it's unedited.  Get the ideas out onto a page or a hard drive.  So I'm going to do it too.  What if my students read my writing and think, "This guy isn't all that good!  How audacious of him to be teaching a writing class, when his metaphors are mixed and his ideas wander.  I will return to our theme: this is not for final products.  This is for brainstorming and letting our ideas spill out.  If we can find some nuggets of golden ideas, this will be worth it.  If we can get over our terror at the blank page, this will be worth it.  If our typing improves and our flow quickens, we will have accomplished something.  I am confident that my own struggles with writer's block will be alleviated through this practice, even though I know it may be difficult to make time for it.  I am excited for the challenge and the growth that I anticipate in myself as a writer, not to mention a teacher of writing.

I have writers in my family.  My mother considers herself a writer, although she is out of practice as well.  My paternal grandfather wrote children's stories, a hobby I admire and would like to emulate.  My maternal grandmother worked on writing a memoir, but never finished.  She was to anxious to sit down and make progress with it, and she passed away before she was able to complete it.

I have written biographies of my maternal grandfather, and I would enjoy revisiting his life.  I would like to go back and re-read some of my expository essays from college.  I'd also like to write more fiction, either for children or for adults.  I've always been partial to poetry, so this can be a venue for that too.  I remember hearing how many writers switch genres in the middle of their journal.  I'll try:

A fly crawls
across the page
across the floor
how much of its short life am I seeing?
Where was it born?
Where will it die?
How much larger am I than it?
How much larger is the universe than I?

Haha, very deep, right?  Well, I think that's going to wrap up my five minutes for now, and I will come back to write more tomorrow!  I'm excited about the Writing 7 students' blogs that they will create tomorrow!  They are going to be incredible!