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I have been thinking a lot lately about identity. Specifically my identity as a writer. I rather stumbled upon writing, I am unlike many of my writer friends who have “always written”. It started for me about 6 years ago. I can actually name the incident. My daughter was in kindergarten and we had been to see a local production<\/a> of “The Wizard of Oz” with her class. It was quite an experience. I waved goodbye as she got on the bus to go back to school and headed to the parking deck to get in my minivan to go back home. Pulling out of my parking space I was suddenly hit with a compelling thought about the whole experience. I quickly jotted down a couple of phrases as I waited in line to leave. I went home and wrote my piece. I showed it to my husband who encouraged me to submit it to our local newspaper. I had previously written a letter to the editor concerning school budgets that had been published and gotten a fair amount of attention (including coffee with a then state senator<\/a>), but I didn’t consider that “writing”. I wasn’t sure about doing it, but I sent it off and amazingly it was published with no editing. Thus began my writing “career”. Since that time I’ve written a couple more letters to the editor, had a faith piece published in same newspaper, joined a writers group, started writing two different novels (one middle grade book and one chick lit), and started this blog (not in this particular order). And yet, I rarely introduce myself as a writer.<\/p>\n

It hit me yesterday that I am a blogger and proud of it. Blogging is like being a columnist, but on my terms. Coming to this realization and embracing it has given me a new sense of empowerment to identify myself as a writer. Maybe now that I have decided I am already a writer, I can finish writing those books.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"