Laura Smith Writer

Returning to the Page

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It has been awhile since I have sat down to put words to page in any meaningful way. I have been writing alongside my memoir students, yet these musings remain in a document, tucked away and out of sight. Since my last post I have run the NY Marathon three additional times, and each time I think about how to relay the experience in writing, yet these thoughts do not see the light of day, and I chat about the experience without processing through writing. Whether this has to do with fear or sloth, I am not sure. I indulge in the words of others, consuming novels, podcasts, articles on a daily basis, yet I am afraid to publish this one paragraph post. If I were to look back to previous posts on this blog (I have recently moved from Blogger to WordPress) I would see many posts lamenting my inability to step into the sunlight and hit “Publish.” Yet I have been “writing” in my head, during morning meditations and long runs with my dog. Sometimes I jot down ideas in my journal, but mostly I leave the ideas on the road or on the cushion. I am stuck. So I am hitting the “Publish” on this post before I fade into the background once more.

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● About Me

I wrote and published my first blog post on May 26, 2009. I was about to turn 36 and had been accepted to Mount Holyoke College as a non-traditional student, on my way to completing a Bachelor of Arts in English with a minor in Medieval Studies. I had managed, finally, to know what general direction I was traveling. As a self proclaimed voracious reader I knew that I needed a vocation that would allow me to engage daily with words: reading words, writing words, and hearing words. I also needed to eat, so I navigated my way to a teaching position and I began to fine tune my craft. I love to teach and I love my students, but I also needed to continue to hone my own literary technique, voice, and style. I continued my education in order to delve deeper into literature, making connections, and most definitely, writing. I gained more confidence as a reader as well as a writer of both creative and analytical text. That first blog post in 2009 is short, the writing average, and the topic mundane, but as I continued to learn from other writers I began to understand that to become a better writer I needed to write more. Each time I write and release a poem, a post, or a story, I hone my skills. I invite you along for the ride, for this journey of mine as I attempt to wrangle a wealth of ideas and competing directions into an organized freshly paved path to publication. I might get distracted along the way, but sometimes those detours lead us to amazing views and new friends. 

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