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I have always enjoyed writing, and I've been creating stories, poems, and songs since I've been about five years old.
So, it comes as no surprise to anybody who knows me that I would be so into blogging.
Am I opinionated? Uh-huh.
Am I stubborn? Yup!
Do I love to write? Of course.
Do I NEED to write? Only as much as I need to breathe.
So, what could be more entertaining for me than blogging?
Along with writing, I've got many hobbies in my life to keep me busy. I scuba dive, I ride my horses, I ski, I sail, I'm a parent of four (seven if you count their spouses), a husband, and a grandfather of three.
I do some theatrical directing, I act periodically onstage for regional theater, and I run a manufacturing business with my two brothers and my uncle.
I keep horses, cats and dogs on my farm.
Seems like all of those activities would keep me pretty busy, wouldn't you think?
So why blog?
Well, I stumbled into blogging by accident. I was fooling around on the computer a few years ago, and I happened upon Blogster.com (The old Blogster. The adolescent Blogster, before it came of age and morphed into the thing of beauty that it is today.)
After careful consideration and much procrastination, I decided to test the waters a little with my first post - a "Hi, My Name Is Jim, And I'm New To This" kind of thing.
When I began getting comments and replies to my writing, I was hooked!
I've known for a long time that I can make people laugh, I can make them cry, I make them angry, I can make them happy...all through my writing.
Somehow, blogging is different than other forms for writing.
When I write a story or a an article, it takes weeks to get feedback from editors, and eventually, (hopefully), from readers. The same with writing a play. It takes months of rehearsals after the show is written to get an audience response.
But with blogging, reactions are almost instantaneous. That's fun! I can post something at 7 a.m. and have ten comments by noon!
Blogging is also comfortable and non-structured. The writing can be very "to the point" for one post, and it can be a wandering, stream-of-conscienceness thing in the next post. And the topics are as varied as there are feelings and thoughts.
However, the BEST part is that nobody hasto like it. It's not important that it "sells". Blogging is a personal outlet of emotion and expression. It's, somehow, more pure.
Now, I just found out yesterday the my latest play, Blessed Event, is being picked up as a staged dramatic reading by The Windham Theatre Guild. This will probably lead to a full production run of the show by next year.
Another play of mine is currently being considered for production by a group called The Little Theater of Manchester. Seems that somebody on their board of directors saw a production of a play I wrote called The Cultivation of Succulents and was pretty impressed with it.
To me, there is little in life that is more gratifying than to have people appreciate my writing. The thrill of seeing and hearing a theater audience react to words I've written is incredibly exciting.
And, it's funny, because sometimes I'm not exactly sure how I feel about something until I start to write about it. Maybe writing it down helps me to focus and organize my thoughts. Maybe it helps me to take a more objective look at myself. I'm not sure.
All I know for sure is that, whether it is in the form of a blog post, a short story, or a theatrical script, those words are me. They are who I am and how I feel and what I think.
That may be frightening to some folks, but I love it. I love the anxiety of it, the rawness of it, the honesty of it, and, hopefully, the acceptance that comes from it.