She did not plan; she merely let herself go, and the overwhelming life in her did the rest. It is only when youth is gone and experience has given us a sort of cheap courage that most of us realize how simple such things are. – F. Scott Fitzgerald

If I was afraid of heights, this blog would be my leap from an airplane. I’m hoping that by letting myself go and facing the fear of my failure, I won’t be afraid anymore. I want other timid writers to join me in erasing fear and finding voices here. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s cheap courage reminds me that I have never failed but found other ways to live a happy and genuine life. It’s easier to trust myself than to create a plan that I will never meet.

I don’t attend graduate school for creative writing and I don’t have a journalism degree. In fact, I spend most of my days in front of a computer scheduling calendars. A job, believe it or not, I actually kind of enjoy. No one is paying me to write this and in fact, I’m shelling out cash to a website provider to write this because it frees me. I am showing the world that I’m not afraid anymore and that the world (that’s you) doesn’t need to be afraid anymore either.

This is a blog about writing. Here, I intend to archive the beginning of my writing life. I want to record every embarrassing rejection, awkward handshake, and forgotten deadline. I want to share the good too: events I attend, other aspiring writers I know, and the few actual accomplishments I may have.

Sure, this is a time when everyone has a brand but I also believe in more than just labeling myself… Like developing a voice, creating a community, and carefully mining a skill. The desire to write is a gift, but the practice of writing is not. It takes work and imagination and determination. I’m going to address what it’s like to be the new kid on the block in a world where it appears that everyone has an edge.

One day, I hope I can look back at this experiment as the full documentation of how “I made it”. Because then when someone young asks me how I did it, I’ll have more advice to give than just saying, “I wrote.”