beginnings.

Hi, I'm Amy and I'm a writer. Technically, I'm NOT a writer. Technically I have a day job that gives me a nice paycheck once a month, provides health insurance, and puts food on my table, clothes on my back, and a roof over my head (these last three are really important things because I get pretty nasty-tempered when my blood sugar crashes, I have a slight problem in malls and at Target, and I think I'd make a really crappy homeless person/panhandler).

But I still like to call myself a writer (lower case w), even though I've never been published. And, uh, haven't done a lot of writing over the last few years. It's that last one that's really putting a cramp in my writerly aspirations.

Never been published: I've only sent one piece out to one place and it was promptly rejected.  This didn't stop me from writing; I'm just using it as an example to illustrate how very little focus I have when it comes to writing: I've written for years and years and years, and I've sent out exactly one piece, to one place, five years ago. The End.

I've been fascinated with words since I found out about them--a story my mom likes to float around about me is that, when I was 6, I liked to read the Wall Street Journal. (I wasn't actually reading the Wall Street Journal--just picking out all the sight words I was learning. Did you know the Wall Street Journal is chock full of grade school level sight words? It's true--go read one right now and count them all. I'll wait.) And ever since that one story about the owl family that delighted my 2nd grade teacher, I took my Wall Street Journal sight word reading skills and applied them to writing stories. Second grade narratives were followed by 7th grade sci-fi attempts, which were followed by bad romances featuring really classic, romantic figures like Michael Jackson.

Back around 2001, I wrote a piece reflecting on the sudden death of my dad and shared it with some family and friends who all said: this is good! (because that's what family and friends are SUPPOSED to say, homies). But then I shared it with some strangers who said the same thing. And then I said, "Well, maybe I should write some more and share some more with more strangers." And I did. I wrote some more and shared some more with strangers (of the non-publisher variety), but lost focus and here we are today.

Not writing: I haven't written a lot over the last 2 or 3 years. I could say this is because I had a kid, and that's why. But a lot of people have kids and still find the time to write books or music or paint or ski or lose 100 pounds or whatever, so it's just kind of an excuse I like to throw around. I use it for why I no longer run/work out, too, by the way. In fact, I find kids are really convenient for excuse-making, as well as fetching things from the kitchen for you. I'm not suggesting that's why I had one, but I'm also not denying it.

Not writing. That's pretty big, isn't it? You can't really, you know, get published if you don't have anything thing, say for example, written down that's kind of, I don't know, ready to be published. Can you call yourself a writer if the only writing you ever do is in your head?

Lately, I've thought a lot about writing while not writing. Once upon a time I wrote every single day. In fact, in my head I still write every single day; it's just that nothing from there ever makes it to paper or a computer screen. But the act of actual writing, sit-butt-in-chair-and-write writing? Not so much. You'll see me waste time on Facebook and Pinterest a lot. I spend a lot of time with my butt in a chair doing that. You'll see me Googling odd and bizarre things like "hot celebrity men a girl can daydream about." I do a lot of googling about things like that while butt sitting. I think I alone am responsible for the 10,000+ hits on Gerard Butler, Clive Owen, and Jason Isaacs' unofficial fan pages.

But that's not really writing is it? And if I really want to be a Writer (capital W), I suppose I'll have to sit down and do that. My writer/ spiritual hero Anne Lamott says you're supposed to do this if you're a writer, and if Anne Lamott says to do it, writerly people: you do it!

Anyway. The whole point of this blog is writing. Writing about writing, posting snippets of stuff I've written, and occasionally doing what I do best: mourning my life in writing, for all the world to see and judge and comment on (is that not why the concept of blogging even started in the first place? I'm pretty sure I read that somewhere on technogeek.com back in the early 2000's).

If you are here because I found your blog and stalked you into visiting mine, HI! I'm glad you gave in and came here. If you are here by accident, I'm sorry? Maybe you'll find something useful (sometimes I like to write about pairing the perfect bottle of cheap wine and grilled cheese).

If you are Clive Owen, Gerard Butler, or Jason Isaacs or one of their agents, could you please leave me a note with information on where/how to apply for a personal assistant job for you? I am good at: writing blog entries that ramble off into incomprehensible tangents, putting a load of laundry in the washer and then forgetting about it for 3 days, and pairing cheap wines with grilled cheese sandwiches. In fact, I can't believe no one in Hollywood knows how to pair cheap wines with grilled cheese sandwiches, and I think that's wrong, a complete travesty. You should hire me to rectify that for you. (I'll need to bring my 4 year old along on most jobs, but she's very adept at tippy-toe walking and having melt downs in public so it'll be an awesome experience for everyone, I promise!)