I want to write-a rant.

I want to write.

That sounds like a no-brainier, since I am writing this minute, but it's more than that. I have wanted to write for decades, but never thought I was good enough. Why waste time and effort with failure? I knew I was going to fail from the outset.

Some of it is because I took remarks people---mostly my sisters---to heart. I heard "don't be stupid" or "don't be foolish" so many times, it became part of me. Another thing I heard regularly was "You can't sing." Oh, and I love to sing...I even took Singing classes in college for fun.
I was told I couldn't major in English, unless I wanted to teach. Did I want to teach? No, I was going to major in Social Work.

Anyway, I minored in English and majored in History during college, which is where I had a writing class. It made me glad. My professor, Rod, took me seriously, and believed I actually had something to say. It was a semester's worth of encouragement and I knew that I wanted to write, even if I wasn't any good at it.

And I'm not. This whole piece, essay, whatever---probably not an essay that requires a format, not random mumblings from a possibly disturbed mind--- shows that. It is trite, flat unoriginal. There isn't a well-described thing in here anywhere, the whole thing is whiny.

I don't care. If no one reads this,that's fine. I just want to vent out all this crap so I can write something, even if it is trash. Pure, sheer, unadulterated rubbish. That was one thing I distinctly remember my professor Rod telling me. There are several hundred pages of bad writing in everyone, and once you get that out, then the good writing comes out. So here I am writing rubbish just because I knew I had to sit down and write starting with the words " I want to write." Because I am not really myself if I don't write. It's like a piece of me is missing. To use the simile "like a missing puzzle piece " cannot describe it. To me, it is more like the color red, or blue, or green, is missing from the puzzle outright. I want to write.

I have finally reached this place where I will actually do something about this. For valentine's day, my husband purchased an iPad Air for me. I was delighted. I had only had it a short while when I figured out there was a note taking feature. I made a couple of journal-type entries, then one day I wrote a short story---I don't know why, but I did. It felt good, and the story actually seemed to be pretty good. Several years ago, I created a Writing.com account and never used it. Now I decided I would. My iPad has a touchscreen, and since I can't really type because of physical limitations, I was thrilled. I didn't need an actual piece of hardware to type! My handwriting is atrocious, and, unfortunately, becoming progressively worse. I could do this;writing was possible. I needed something for myself,some thing that was truly mine. This was it.

Anyway, I checked out the site which was truly baffling. What is a bitem?
What are GP's? But I now have the hang of it enough that I can write and post, review and submit to contests. I feel good about this, this part of me, this element of myself, suppressed for so long, rising to the surface, breaching the ocean's depths to get out. It reaches into that part of me that says "you can write" and tells the negative voices to Shut Up! I really like it.

I think I'm running out of things to say---well, maybe not though I think I should. Haven't I talked enough? Nobody's interested in this anyway. My writing should be drying up any moment now. Does it really matter if I say these things? I don't really have talent---those four and five star reviews were written by well-meaning but deluded people who missed the obvious flaws in my work. This criticism stuff can't be trusted. Who am I anyway, to waste people's time with reading this crap? Who am I kidding? I will never be published, except in a church newsletter or something. Why even try? I need to leave writing to people who actually know how,and that ain't me hon. I'm just a waste of breathable air, a nobody who had never held a real job, and is only someone's wife, someone's mom. I do not matter, I do not count and I'd better not forget it.

SHUT UP!!!

SHUT UP!!!

Anyway, the people at Writing.com seem nice. Maybe they aren't all just being nice. There might be something in there I can say. Maybe...Maybe it's time to find out. Yeah. Let's try.