Today is January 20, 2020. I don’t want to take away from the importance of Martin Luther King and his famous “I have a Dream” speech. Today is all about him and the call to service. For me, it ended up being a wake-up call from dreams to reality.
Today, I achieved a reality I had only dreamed about and envisioned and began to plan for a long time. It seems there is never a right time to start a blog, a business, or a new beginning. Except, for me, that first day came today.
I started writing informally for personal reasons and pure desire when I was a teen. I distinctly recall writing a novella and giving it to my sophomore class English teacher to review. The dream to be a writer was inside of me for many years. Life happened and I ended up turning to a career in criminal justice. I set out to be a prosecuting attorney and went to law school with the purpose of psychoanalyzing crimes and determining whether to punish people through traditional incarceration or alternatives including reform and rehabilitation.
And then life just kept on happening. Perhaps the biggest roadblock in my life telling me I should not become an attorney was the very real fact that I spent thousands of dollars on attorney bar exam preparation classes and exam fees and still didn’t pass the bar exam despite trying for upwards of 12 years. It was sort of like trying to have a baby and not being able to.
While I was waiting to get that declaration that I was not intended to be an attorney, I became a mom in real life and reverted to my uber creative roots, working on multiple creative projects. I also dabbled in writing because words come so easily to me and I just love to write.
When I was expecting my second daughter, I experienced terrible morning sickness and weirdly enough, a desire to take my writing to a more professional level. For many years, I had sought out writing opportunities where I would write for someone and get paid. There were a few gigs here and there, but nothing became serious until an editor decided to take a chance on pregnant me and my dedicated employment history on high school sports (enter a bit of sarcasm here) by letting me write high school stories for an online venue.
That would be the first of multiple challenges I would happily face as I began to navigate the uncertain, but wholly glossy and beautiful waters of freelance writing. Stick around and you might just learn some more facts about my journey and progress into freelance writing.
For now, I’m pleased as toast that I have finally cemented my airy dreams into a palpable reality – – with a dedicated website that showcases my writing work!
