"With a Conscience" - "Fear, "the other white meat" "

                                                      "Fear, "the other white meat" "

I've lacked the courage and the discipline to continue this blog and now I understand why. Fear. It's difficult to follow your passion. My passion as always been in conflict with the passions of other people. Family, friends, colleagues have always been very supportive and at the same time, the more communication I've had with them, the less I've followed my own passions. It's not their fault but it is mine. Writing has always been my passion and I have found too many excuses not to pursue it or develop the passion further. Fear has a ridiculous way or preventing the human race from paying attention to the inner voice that says, "You need to be doing this. If you don't, you are are going to falter, and end up taking too many detours." Life, as I am finding, is brief.

I've been writing since I was old enough to hold a crayon. The crayons migrated to pencils, then to pens. In 1980, my parents gave me a Smith-Corona typewriter for college. I was on my way to journalism school in Flagstaff, Arizona and thought this was the most wonderful gift. My parents were handing my opportunity to me and telling me to grasp it and never let it go. That typewriter went everywhere with me, throughout my entire college career. As technology advanced, again it was my father who bought me my first computer and he asked me to "put it too good use and write." When he passed in 1998, I promised myself I would. I am almost embarrassed to admit that years later (2005, to be exact) when laptops were perfected, my mother funded my first laptop for exactly the same reasons my father bought me my first typewriter and then desktop years ago. They would support the passion they knew lie inside of me even when I was too unfocused to recognize it myself. In 2008, the year I received my masters, my brother-in-law gave me a very expensive pen and paper as a gift and he wondered whether or not I'd appreciate it. I thought it was the most fabulous, if not profound gift that I've received. I carry that pen with me and use it whenever possible.

Writing has to be a passion. To write so people will read, means that a commitment has to be made to whatever subject matter the writer dares to address. Writing means being courageous. Writing means discipline. Writing means a desire for change. Most people write because they want to change the reader's perspective or provoke them to feel. Writers also educate. Writers entertain too.

So where am I to fit within the endless sea of words from passionate people? That remains to be seen but I suppose I'll start with a "thank you" for the crayons, the pencils, the typewriter, the pen and now, the laptop.