So my writing is starting to have a flavor, a texture if you will.

I have wanted to be a writer since I was in middle school. I wrote short stories and poetry back then. I wrote poetry all through high school and my twenties. Then I met my husband, had a bunch of kids. Life happens.

I kept waiting for inspiration to strike. Then I started reading advice on writing and all of it boiled down to one thing. Stop waiting, stop procrastinating, stop making excuses and WRITE.

So I did. I stared four months ago. In that time, I have churned out three completed short stories, multiple pieces of flash fiction and have put just over 10,000 words to paper on the book I’m currently working on.

What I’ve noticed in my flash fiction is a recurring theme with my main characters and that is freedom, escaping the mundane, leaving behind a painful past, claiming their futures in unconventional ways, taking charge of an unhappy life by setting out on an adventure to the unknown. Be it a girl getting on a strange space craft even though she has no idea what it is or where it’s going, or a girl throwing all of civilization to the wind and taking off into the wilderness with a pack of wolves, or a business executive leaving this world behind for a more primitive one, I can see a distinctive thread emerging.

And I kind of love it! Does it reflect some internal journeys in my own life? Sure! Does it reflect what’s going on right now in my life? Maybe. As I stand on the threshold of what I have always done and what I have always wanted to do, yes, I suppose it does.

It amazes me to see an actual writing style starting to emerge. I’m watching my own metamorphosis. I was distressed at first not to be able to settle into a genre, then shocked that my first two short stories were horror though I had no desire or intent to be a horror writer nor did I imagine myself one. Then I gave up trying to label myself and just wrote! And it was glorious! I love that stories sometimes pour out of me. I just had to learn to give them that opportunity!

I gave up on waiting for inspiration to strike and took charge of my writing. I gave up on worrying about selling any of it, ever and that has been the most freeing thing of all. I just write because I love to write! When I write, I create whatever comes into my mind, there are no limits and no boundaries! And that, my friends, is freedom!