Going live with this blog has motivated me to write more consistently in an “AUGH! I’ve begun and I’d better keep going!” kind of way. Keeping a journal certainly wasn’t providing the motivation, so I’m glad I’ve found something that has. Recently, I was allowed to guest blog on New Year’s Eve. Writing that post renewed my hunger to write more.
As I mentioned in my first interview as a writer, I earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English Literature. Toward the end of my University days, I realized that I had no interest in continuing to write about other people’s work or becoming a professor of literature. Instead, I had a desire to write my own stories and observations. Twenty-one years later I’m finally putting some teeth on that dream.
A few years after being graduated from University of California at Santa Cruz (UCSC), Todd and I married . Together we lived on a sailboat for eight years, sailed north to Canada, south to Mexico, west across the South Pacific and south again to New Zealand. We lived in New Zealand for three years and while there I gave birth to our first child, Jessica. And then depression hit. I still battle that beast. Thumbnail of a long story: when Jessica was twenty months old, we moved to the Sun Valley, Idaho area. A year and a half later, I gave birth to our second child, David. During Summer 2013, we traveled as a family to S.E. Asia and back to New Zealand: www.sheepwagon.net.
As the children have grown older, the desire to write fiction has been a vague dream burning on pilot light. Last October, I stumbled upon www.FaithWriters.com where they have a weekly writing challenge. There, I submitted my first piece of fiction, which has become this blog’s first post. Somewhere along the road of my life I heard tales of NaNoWriMo: National Novel Writing Month, which happens each November. It was the end of October 2013, I had met my first writing goal with my Faith Writers submission and decided to go for the NaNoWriMo gold ring: 50,000 words written in a rough draft in one month. I embarked on my new goal November 1st and by November 28th had succeeded!
All my life I have loved literature. In University I discovered I could read great literature, write papers and earn a degree. I love to learn through fiction. And the Author of Life teaches through story in His Word: the Bible. I want to honor God in all that I do. Some days I do that better than others.
So, my current reasons for blogging:
- Give voice to the thoughts and ideas running around in my head
- Practice my writing craft
- Honor God with the talents He’s given me
If you blog, what are your reasons for doing so?
Hi Ellen. Wonderful post! I wanted to leave a response right away, but thought, “No, I should probably do it after I’ve had a least an hour or so of sleep.” Have accomplished that, here I am! 🙂
I blog for many of the same reasons you do. While my life hasn’t been nearly the adventure yours has, I have been through some things that have helped me understand that we are all a lot more alike than we are different, and we need to give voice to our stories so we can find that common ground.
I grew up in a Pentecostal evangelical church. The church I grew up in was more concerned with people speaking in tongues and prophesying than it was with helping people who were struggling with real but taboo problems, leaving those of us in the midst of that struggling to suffer alone. I had been bullied repeatedly while growing up, and the impact of those experiences began to manifest in the form of severe depression when I was in my early teens. This would carry on into my adulthood. I struggled profoundly with thoughts of ending my life, even expressing those thoughts to people who I believed were safe. In all that time, not only was I not given any help, I was labeled a problem for my family because I brought them shame in the eyes of the church I attended.
I have experienced a lot of pain over the years because of struggles with depression, feelings of alienation and betrayal by people I trusted, and the knowledge that the church I trusted was not a safe place for me. I don’t think my experiences are so unique that no one else can relate to them. Rather, the opposite is true. I believe that far too many people have experienced this kind of pain, yet it is something people are only just not beginning to speak about openly. Those of us who have struggled with depression, addiction, and other lifelong problems that require diligent management have been cloaked in shame, told that if we would only do this or apply that spiritual remedy, we would be well. It provides a serrated edge to the already double edged sword of being diagnosed with an illness or struggling with an addiction that society has already told you is something only weak people deal with.
I blog to let people know they are not alone. I blog to remind people that we are all in this together, and none of us is getting out alive, so we may as well make the journey as peaceful and joyful for each other as we can. I blog to give people what I didn’t have…a safe place to come and at find kinship with someone who has been where they are and isn’t afraid to talk about it.
I am going to reblog this post and answer again on my own blog. 🙂 I like this discussion!
Stephanie,
Thank you so much for your raw honesty! I’m sure I’ll be blogging more about my experiences with depression. I have not suffered quite the same pain of having a church community respond as yours did–how awful! But thinking about it, I have dealt with similar pressures in my life that I must be doing something really wrong. I shall be pondering what you wrote and look forward to further communication here and at your blog. So good to have connected with you.
I am so glad that I met a fellow writer like you Ellen! New Zealand. I still wish I could’ve known you before you left!
I’d say I blog for four main reasons.
1. It gives me a place to post stories that would otherwise never see the light of day again. My blog has a few dozen stories, poems, and other bits of writing that I wrote either for school or for fun. I posted them on my blog because otherwise they would never get read again ever, and what’s the point of that?
2. It gives me a place to share my thoughts and get feedback. When I get comments or even likes on my blog, it helps me to know that people are interested in my writing and think that it’s good.
3. It keeps me writing every week. I post on a 3 day a week schedule with Google Calendar reminders to keep me on track. That way I never fall into a slump and go weeks or months without writing.
4. I use it as an author platform. I published a short story eBook last year, and I’m publishing a novel this year. The blog is a place to talk about my work and build interest. Everyone who regularly reads my blog is also a potential customer for my books. I regularly link to “Radiance” from my blog posts so that anyone who gets interested can, if they wish, go buy it and read it.
[…] My amazing new friend, Ellen, of Ellen Exploring, asked a poignant question when she asked “Why Do I Blog?” […]