Secret Desire

I have told very few people, very few, that my secret desire is to be a writer. This is such a secret that I really have not done any writing, except in my own head. I never took a writing class in college or spent much time writing short stories. I wrote a few as a kid and they are funny to read now because they are pretty twisted. Somehow the prince kept getting eaten by a bear or some wild animal. Not just once but in more than one story that I have from my childhood.

I am not sure why I want to be a writer.  I have never been encouraged to be a writer. But it seems like a job I would like. I love sitting alone in a quiet room just writing down  my thoughts. So I guess I should clarify. I would love to be a columnist or an essayist who shares my thoughts on the world in hopefully funny ways that cause people to think and see the world from a different perspective. I love Donald Miller and Anne Lamont. They write about their faith, their foibles, their loves and their mistakes. Reading them often brings clarity to my experience even though our lives look nothing alike on the outside.

I don't want to change minds, just maybe open them a bit. And actually as I write this I realize I write to get things out of my mind and onto paper, or the computer screen in this case, not for people to read. Not that I don't like people reading. I would love to have people all over reading what I think and posting comments and starting dialogues. But I realize that is probably for real writers.

For now I will just write. Maybe people read my blog, maybe not. But either way, I will be clearing a few of my many inner dialogues out of my head, maybe even making room for me to remember the important stuff, like we need bananas. More likely new crazy ideas will take the place of the old ones.