The Writer’s Soul Award

Here is something that cheered me up this past week. Teresa, aka The Haunted Wordsmith, has combined two blogging awards and established a new accolade named THE WRITER’S SOUL AWARD, as you can see from her post below:

https://thehauntedwordsmith.wordpress.com/2019/02/24/the-writers-soul-award/

I am very grateful for all of the support from Teresa and other bloggers. It is almost ten months since I started blogging and I have enjoyed it much more than I ever imagined I would.

I have been in the habit of writing since I was a young child, but not stories, and certainly not poems. Even at school I struggled with that kind of writing. I could churn out essays easily, but making up a story or poem was not natural to me.

I am a life-long letter writer. I had little penpals all over England and then in other countries, and other continents. The post office must have loved me! During my teens I was an extremely prolific letter-writer. Eventually, as I became busier and busier and technology became more accessible, I made the switch to e-mails. I was rather pleased that I could type a long e-mail about our adventures and then send it to hundreds of friends who I had been keeping in touch with previously by post.

I have had shorts spells of keeping a journal. I went through eighteen months of illness requiring several surgical procedures about twelve years ago. Keeping a journal helped me at that time. Also, when I was twenty four and I split up with my teenage sweetheart who had been courting me for years. I do believe that the letter writing and the occasional journal keeping have shaped my style of writing.

Since I started blogging, I have read the work by many other writers and have loved their poetry and flash-fiction and longer stories. I have made a few attempts myself. I must admit I find I often revert to writing about a real-life experience, instead of making up something imaginary. But I have decided I will keep trying to develop better writing skills, and especially with regards to short flash-fiction posts.

At the moment…I feel a bit aghast at the thought of writing about myself. It’s all a bit raw right now. I am sure that will pass! But in the meantime, I quite like the idea of working on a bit more flash-fiction, immersing myself in completely imaginary fictional characters. Thinking up little stories and hopefully throwing in some clever twist, as so many talented bloggers have mastered the skill of doing.

I am really looking forward to spring and summer ahead. I want to be outside as often as possible. I will take a little notebook and pen and if I have any ideas or see anything that inspires me, I will jot them down and work on some stories to keep my site light-hearted and joyful. And all of my stories will have happy endings – because those are the type that I prefer.

I think it will be good for me…to try to write a bit of fiction, and I might even subject you to more bad poetry. I love that no matter how awful my occasional poems are, there is always a lovely blogger willing to tell me it’s nice. Some gorgeous bloggers out there. 🙂