Once More Into the Breach

I told Rich that I needed to write my intro post for LJ Idol*, my confirmation of "I'm in."

"Are you insane?" his face asked.  His mouth was much more politic.  He pointed out that writing for LJ Idol has fed into my insecurities in the past.  That I've always felt bad when I've had to back out, I've always worried that my writing sucked and no one would tell me the truth.  I doubted and questioned and worked myself up.

"I need to write," I told him.

"You don't need Idol to write."

"Yeah, but I want to."

And, as with everything else, he shrugged his shoulders and sat behind me in quiet support, knowing that he may be in for tears, fears and my need for beers (ok, that one was a stretch).  But it was something I needed to do, something I wanted to do.  And he would be my cheerleader through it all.

I expect insecurities after I've put a piece of myself out in the wider world.  I expect conviction that, each week, I'll be booted.  But I'll also know that every year, I've gotten further than I expected I would.  Every year, prompts have made me find a new aspect of myself I didn't know I had.  Every year, I've gained more than I've lost.

I haven't participated in several years.  Part of it was that I drifted away from LJ, connecting with more of my friends on Facebook.  Most of my friends had done the same.  Part of it was all of the things going on with me - dealing with the boys in school, trying to keep up with the house, trying to write 3 blogs (of which this is one), navigating the unexpected waters of having a special needs child - all conspired to make it difficult for me to make deadlines.  Too many other thoughts were crowding my head to allow inspiration to strike. And I was setting myself up to fail.  So I stepped back.

This year, though, I feel different.  Yes, I've still got a lot of things stressing and depressing me, but I'm not the same version of myself as I was then.  I'm finding that I'm spending far too much time on my phone, playing app games, instead of being creative.  And I want that to change.  So I'm going to take time to write instead. Here.  And now.

I hope that, over the next several months, you have a chance to get to know me better.  Most of my writing is non-fiction, from the heart stuff.  But you may, once in awhile, find a piece of fiction or a poem floating among my entries.  I write where the mood strikes.

Thanks for stopping by and checking out one more contestant for LJ Idol Season 11, Homecoming.