I am not at the very start of my personal writing journey. That started long ago. I was very small, entranced by mom’s portable computer. Portable computer, not a laptop. That sucker needed a table – or the largest shelf in the home: the floor.
When mom would allow it, I would haul that massive block of electronics into the bedroom I shared with my older brother, open it up, and sit cross-legged on the floor in front of the computer. I’d open it up and fidget for however many minutes it took for the computer to boot up. My fingers itched.
Nothing excited me more than the blinking orange cursor on the dark green background. In that moment, I could write anything. Any thought whatsoever. No one could contain me.
Words on paper weren’t safe. Someone could find those words, and then those words would become a weapon. There were enough weapons in that small apartment, and I had no intention of creating any more.
The computer though. There, I made directories buried under more directories, and there, hidden from everyone who didn’t know the correct path, I could say anything, and everything. I felt safer and freer in those precious moments than in any other moment in that period in my life.
Technology has changed. I’m writing the first draft of this post on electronic paper with a stylus that has a tab on the opposite end that acts as an eraser. A truly erasable pen! The magic!
My sense of freedom has also changed. My home no longer has weapons hiding in plain sight. Writing isn’t my only freedom. With this, my writing itself has evolved. My stories aren’t just for me anymore.
This is where the journey documented here comes in. This is my journey to share my stories. I dream of working full-time on my stories. I want to be able to make a living telling my stories – because even though my need to write has transformed as much as I have, my deep passion for it has not waned. I don’t feel whole if I am not writing.
May this blog series follow me from this moment in my journey all the way to full independence and beyond. May my journey provide yet one more roadmap for others to study, to adapt, to guide them on their own paths toward whatever future they carve for themselves.