A More Personal Post

When I began this blog, I did it with the intention of pointing the finger at those things that I find absurd, hoping to bring attention to the common sense that the world seems to lack. I never wanted to make this a personal journal, or put my mark on it in such a way that the person behind The Beagle is in any way the focus.

I'm going to break my own rule just this once, because I feel the need to throw some thoughts out there, and they are the type of thoughts that I can share with those people that know the person behind The Beagle, but also the type of thoughts that I am comfortable sharing with the stranger stumbling across this blog because of the anonymity.

I don't remember a time when I wasn't writing, or at least thinking about writing. My mother says that I had a room full of dolls that I never played with, and if she wanted to guarantee that I would sit, be good and be quiet, all she had to do was hand me a notebook and a pen or pencil. All this before I actually knew how to write properly. By the time I did know how to formulate a simple sentence, I was writing little stories inspired by Greek myths, an obsession of mine from an early age, as well as Laura Ingalls Wilder (go ahead - laugh) inspired tales.

As I grew older, I became protective and secretive about my writing. Only one person was allowed to read what I wrote, and I even stored my stories at her house so that no one else could read them. I would keep up a main story in secret, but because I could not sit with idle hands, I would write secondary stories while I was at home, in front of the TV, or around others. I don't know if it was a confidence issue or something normal for a child to do, but that's how I did it.

I married my first husband at a young age, and at first, I thought I could trust him with my little stories, many of which went unfinished, and many others which I trashed once they were done because I didn't think they were good enough. My standards are high. I demand a lot from myself. Unfortunately, the relationship I was in fed into that in a negative way, because he lured me in with a promise of constructive criticism, then battered my self esteem in every way and I was fool enough to let him convince me that I would never be a good writer, or necessarily even a good person. Those were dark years, because I love to write and I depend on that outlet, but I gave up on being creative and focused on my journals. After we divorced, I read through my journals and scared myself. I burned them all, along with the negativity I had allowed myself to accept, and emerged a completely different person.

I wrote two novels within a year of the divorce, but both were lost when my computer crashed. I was an idiot for not backing them up. They were readable and a bit of good editing might have made them fit for public consumption. I'll never know. No one read them but me. It took me a long time to get over that loss, because it was a lot like losing a loved one.

Now, I'm a positive, happy person with every outlet to write available to me. I have my hand written journals, my blog, and am 109 pages into a novel that has been dying to get out of my head for the past four years. I'm on the fourth rewrite. Only two people have read any of it and both have been encouraging, offering constructive criticisms that I have taken to heart. I love them both for this, because it was what I needed all along in order to build my confidence. I don't care if it ever gets published. It's my creative outlet. However, there is a little part of me that would love to see copies of it in the hands of strangers, and that is what drives me to go back and rewrite, and what drives me to keep writing.

I still lack the necessary confidence in my writing to put it out there, though. I often ask myself why I am continuing when I might finish it and hit "delete" on the file. I sometimes sit in front of it and think, "Who the hell do you think you are thinking you can write?" Granted, there is much to be done on this project in terms of tightening up the plot and making it worth reading. I often go back and read a paragraph and ask myself if a  monkey on crack could word things better. But I press on anyway.

So where will it end up? I suppose only I can answer that, but not having that answer really bugs me. I don't expect comments on this. I don't know that there is anything to say. I just needed to say this, and now that I have, I am just going to step back and keep doing what I have been doing because it's all I know how to do, even if I don't know that I do it well.