Blank Pages, Blank Screens

Funny...

It's just like starting a new notebook -- pen in hand, a clean, crisp, white page staring back at you. The fact that it's the glow of a blank screen reflecting on your face doesn't make it any easier to choose the first words.

Actually, it makes it harder. I can go back and erase the words that appear on the screen tens, hundreds, thousands (let's hope it doesn't reach that point) of times before saving them for you, whoever you may be, to read. Whereas in my notebook, once I write the words in pen, they are there for good. Sure, I can cross them out and write over them, or in the case of a real train wreck, I can tear out the entire page, feed it to the shredder, and start fresh on the next blank sheet. But being somewhat of a notebook purist, I could never bring myself to do that.

The nice thing is, I'm pretty sure that I'm not alone. That most bloggers have experienced a similar feeling when composing their first post and preparing to release it into the big, wide blogiverse (more than 110 million strong according to Sunday's Baltimore Sun). I imagine it's the way parents feel when they drop off their child on the first day of kindergarten. I don't know what will happen to my posts -- who will read them, how they will be received, what they will be when they "grow up." But I do know that I want my voice to be heard. That I want my words to venture beyond the bound pages of my writer's notebooks.

Before I end this post, I want to say a special thanks to friends and family who have encouraged me over the years to put my writing out there, to my husband who has given me the gifts of space and time for writing, and especially to my sister-in-law, whose bold leap into the blogiverse last year has inspired my own.

So welcome to my blog, dear reader. I hope you find something here that speaks to you --mind, heart, or soul. Something that inspires you to think, feel, or experience something new. Something that makes you laugh, cry, or just say "aha!" But mostly, something that stays with you, long after you've logged out.