Living Proof

When I was around 18 years old, I wrote a book. It was a fictional love story about two women who were just coming out of the closet. It was also in one of those black and white composition notebooks - handwritten. Can you even remember the last time you wrote something at great length with a pen and paper? It's kind of sad today and I know I'm totally guilty of it too, but we are all microblogging and shortening great stories into 140 characters or less.  We're posting our deepest thoughts and adventures onto Facebook with only photos and a few words. We're downloading ebooks and not holding a printed out paperback or hardcover book and reading it from front to back, getting lost in every single word. There's a movie for every book and it's quite rare to hear, "the book was better" these days because nobody reads anymore. And if they do, it's the electronic version - which is fine. But hold up… Technology has advanced, so to keep up, we a...

Without a doubt, I know most people who read my blog are also writers or have the urge to, at least. Some days it comes easy and other days, it feels as though there isn’t one word to describe how I’m feeling; I’m just simply out of steam. For work purposes, it comes easily because there’s an agenda. There’s more of a structured type of program I follow. But, for this blog, my personal little doodling pad, I find it difficult at times to express myself the way I want to, or find the words I want to type. The other night I was watching, Finding Forester , a movie about an afro-american teen writing prodigy who finds a mentor in a reclusive author.  The author was encouraging the boy to write. He said something very significant: “Your first draft you write with your heart. Your second draft you write with your head.” I remember in grammar school we had those ditto sheets. The teacher would tell us to “speed write”---meaning: write every single thought onto the paper as fast as you ...