828 days

The last time I updated this blog, we were all talking about the results of the 2020 election and the Covid vaccine, which wasn't yet available for the general public. I was eagerly awaiting the season 2 premiere of Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist and preparing myself to return to an unfulfilling job after a rejuvenating Christmas break. It was the day before my last grandparent died and a week before I found my first gray hair.

I didn't expect to come back.

In fact, last summer I officially declared my blog dead. Cause of death: not enough creativity and passion to keep it going. I was no longer a person who wrote for fun. So I compiled the last few years of posts into a book to store next to my other blog books, a relic of my past that I could remember fondly but couldn't revive.

I like to blame Covid for killing my creative mojo, but it really started about a year earlier due to a job that was sucking the life out of me. Then Covid came along and finished the job. Career angst followed by a pandemic did a real number on my mental health, and after a while I accepted that I was permanently altered. I had evolved to be the type of person who enjoys others' creations but doesn't create any of my own. 

Halfway through 2021, things started to get better. The world was opening up again, adding some much-needed variety to my life that had become a comfortable form of solitary confinement. I got a new job that was enjoyable and fulfilling, with management that valued me for my strengths rather than dismissed me because of my weaknesses. I went back to a singles ward.

I made the changes I needed to get my life back on track, and my life significantly improved. I was more well-rested than I'd ever been as an adult due to my work-from-home lifestyle. I went on a few dates. My hair may have started turning gray, but it was also curlier than ever due to not needing to straighten it into submission as often. I could watch sports with real people in the background rather than cardboard cut-outs and glitchy Zoom attendees. 

While all of this improved my mental state, it wasn't enough to re-light that creative spark. I could do enough to stay employed, but nothing more. Which wasn't the worst side effect of two years of pandemic living, all things considered. I was painfully aware of how much worse things could be, so I accepted that I had different priorities now and moved on.  

Things continued to improve in 2022. After my carefully-thought-out New Year's resolutions in 2020 were blown to bits, I was hesitant to make optimistic plans again, but I did make one resolution for 2022: spend less time alone. 

So I joined my ward choir. I dubbed Wednesday my mandatory, midweek get-out-of-the-house day, which usually involved either going in to the office or going out to lunch. I became a regular at institute. I tried to take advantage of the fact that my whole family lives within an hour's drive of me and, like, hang out with them more. 

I did big things, too. I signed up for BYU's organ workshop so I could check "learn to play the organ" off my bucket list, and basically had the best week of my life pretending to be a BYU student again. (This is what book nerds do for fun when they aren't reading.) I joined the Stadium of Fire Chorus partly so I'd get a free ticket to see Tim McGraw, partly so I could use "I was once a backup singer for Marie Osmond" the next time I got roped into a Two Truths and a Lie game, and partly to stay busy so I could stay on top of my seasonal depression tendencies. (I am one of those special people who gets it during the summer, rather than the winter.) I went on vacation with my family and checked off another item on my bucket list: "go river rafting." (This was sadly a disappointing experience. I think everyone in my party would agree that it was a huge pain in the butt.) I went on a few more dates, tried a few new dating apps, and then swore off dating apps forever for the 80th time. 

I was happier than I'd been in years, and that little creative spark even flickered from time to time. My boss's comments on my writing at work changed from "You're a great technical writer, but can you make this more exciting/creative?" to "Looks good!" on pretty much everything. I started entertaining the possibility of starting a brand new blog, one with an actual focus and a URL that makes sense to people outside my family.

Of course, this put me up against an old foe of mine: laziness. Starting a new website is a lot of work; I didn't have the energy for that and the writing. So, again, I accepted that I wasn't really a creative person anymore anyway, and focused on the good thing my life had become despite what I lost during Covid.

Which brings me to 2023. So far, my only real complaint about this year has been the always-winter-and-never-Christmas time warp we're stuck in. Like, this week ski resorts in Utah had to close because there was too much snow. In APRIL. Usually snow makes me positively giddy, but breaking all the records this winter kind of broke me too.

But while I've been bundled up for cold evening walks or enduring more treadmill workouts of doom in my depressing basement, I've noticed something a little different about myself the past few months. I spend more time thinking about all the things than I do listening to my favorite podcasts, the ones I'm only allowed to listen to when I work out. Even more annoyingly, I've been losing sleep at night because my brain won't stop constructing sentences and paragraphs out of all those thoughts.

I haven't felt this way in years. It was all this overthinking, in fact, that inspired me to start this blog in the first place, 13 years ago. I told people it was meant to be a creative outlet, but I really just needed something to help me sleep at night.  

Last night as I was ruminating on my creative journey the past few years (and definitely NOT sleeping), I felt like I was reverting back to my fresh-from-college self. But it didn't feel like backsliding. It was more like my brain was demanding that I make room for something I used to love, now that it doesn't have to work so hard to keep me mentally neutral.

A lot can happen in 828 days. You can lose a part of yourself, grow in other ways to fill the void, and then bring something you thought was gone for good back to life.

So here I am, back in the blogging space. It may not be the most sophisticated platform, it may not be the most relevant or respectable hobby, but I'm reclaiming this space anyway. Not just because my journal is no longer cutting it as a way to get thoughts out of my head, but because writing has, against all odds, become fun again. As in, you-don't-have-to-pay-me-to-do-this fun. 

It's a nice feeling. One that I hope lasts.

Fear

A few weeks ago, I took a couple long plane rides to Providence, Rhode Island for what I like to call my annual word nerd vacation (an editing conference). I went a day early so I could attend a writing workshop, where I expected I'd pick up a bunch of tips to bring back to our writing team.

Instead, I got group therapy.

Dave Ursillo, the guy running the workshop, wasn't there to teach us how to write. He was there to help us figure out what our main blocks (he called them "shadows") are that prevent us from writing, and to help us overcome them. We all took a quiz to find out what our main shadows were, and then the group therapy commenced.

Of the three shadows—guilt, shame, and fear—I scored highest in fear. I got the highest score in fear out of the whole group; in fact, no one scored that high in any category—except for me.

I wasn't surprised by my results. Fear drives just about every decision I make, whether I realize it or not. There's the fear of failure. Fear of wasting my time. Fear of rejection, of looking stupid, of making the wrong choice, of making a mistake. The bigger, outward things like riding roller coasters and traveling alone and pursuing a master's degree I can handle, but the less abstract, internal things I tend to sit out. Send a dragon my way and I'll fight it eventually, but invite me to do something I don't think I'll excel at and I'll respectfully decline.

But there is a bright side to this writing shadow. Those who score high in fear have a knack for finding a sense of home in their writing, like journaling. As someone who has journaled regularly since the age of 8, I am much more comfortable sorting through my thoughts in writing than I am in confiding in someone I'm close to. In that private writing realm, there is safety.

Dave's recommendation to me was to write under a pseudonym or as an alter-ego of a character I want to explore. Which is spot-on advice that I intend to follow, but the past few days I've thought more about how this might extend to other areas of my life. If I pretend to be someone else, would that make it easier to take risks? Could my instinct for avoiding the spotlight be the shield that protects me as I try new things? And maybe there's more truth to the "fake it until you make it" mantra than I realize.

If nothing else, this workshop reaffirmed one of my core beliefs: some solutions can only be found when explored through writing. And that word nerds are kindred spirits.

On journaling

I recently made a goal to write in my journal every day. This isn't the first time I've made this goal; in my younger years, it seems like I was constantly resolving to write every day "because Gordon B. Hinckley says it's important." Which meant that in elementary school, I had far too many "I hate [insert sibling here]" entries (alongside many "I hate [insert Chicago Bulls player]" entries). In junior high the hate turned to love, with an entire year's worth of "I love [insert boy]" entries.

My heart was in the right place, but the result was a lot of thoughts I'm not exactly proud I preserved for future generations (except for, perhaps, the Chicago Bulls ones. Some of those were very colorful, like Dennis Rodman's hair).

Since I don't need to motivate myself to write in my journal, I haven't made any journal-related goals since 2002. I eased into writing about once a week, and that's been good enough for me for 13 years.

18 journals, and counting.

But you miss out on some of the biggest benefits of journaling if you wait until something noteworthy has happened to pull out that pen and paper. You forget about the hilarious tidbits that make up everyday life. You don't take the time to think of something you're grateful for on a really crappy day.

The benefits of journaling extend past immediate payoffs, though. I've found that it's a powerful personal revelation tool, as well. It's a bit freaky how often I've found answers to my current struggles by diving into my past experiences. And it's not just about my ever-evolving learning cycle; it's like when you read a scripture at exactly the moment you need it and you feel as if it was written just for you. Only the words are your words, and you already have an emotional connection to them.

Journaling is about more than just documenting your life (which is important, no matter how mundane you think your life is). Your journal can also give so much right back to you if you're willing to put in the effort.

Seriously, if you're not a regular journal keeper, give it another try.

Final thoughts

It's a beautiful fall day, and this is my last post on bold living.

[Image courtesy of the Wheel of Time reread on Tor.com]

It's been an interesting project, one that I both enjoyed and abhorred.

What I liked about it

As a writer, my two biggest challenges center on finding the motivation to write and deciding what to write about. This blog challenge took care of both for me; I already had my topic, and I knew I had to write something every day. It was refreshing to not have to wrestle with either of those challenges for once.

Any time you focus on one thing for days and days, you learn more about it than you normally would. You notice it in everyday conversations, in movies and TV shows, in advertisements. About a week into this challenge, I perked up any time someone said the word "bold," and had to resist the temptation to take notes on everything they said after that. I noticed the different ways people used the word to describe actions, and I was constantly watching people for examples of how they incorporate boldness into their lives.

This challenge also affected me in ways I didn't anticipate. As I dug deeper into bold living, I was forced to delve deeper into sections of my own life. Boldness became a tool to solve issues I was grappling with, and a magnifying glass to help me identify areas I needed to improve in—often in ways I wouldn't have tried before.

What I disliked about it

It's called a 31-day blog challenge for a reason. There were times I didn't even want to use any form of the word "bold," I was so sick of it. I would long to write about insignificant things—my craving for pizza, the contact I lost this morning after I put it in, anything!—without having to justify how it fit into bold living.

Writing every day was difficult, too. Weekends were especially hard, since I rarely blog on Saturdays and Sundays. You probably noticed that those posts were less meaty than the weekday ones.

Would I do it again?

Maybe. The arguments for and against match up pretty evenly. (Although the personal growth aspect should probably get more weight, meaning the pros outweigh the cons.)

But for now, I'm happy to be done. I'm going to try to keep up my new daily writing habit during November via my own version of NaNoWriMo, but this blog will go back to normal. Hallelujah.

Some final stats

• My page views for this month more than quadrupled my previous record. Traffic started spiking a few weeks before I started this challenge, though, so I don't think the extra traffic was solely because of this challenge.
• Most popular post: bold literary characters.
• My favorite post: probably the corn maze one.

And, that's a wrap! My 31-Days of Bold Living page now has 31 entries.

Boldness in creativity

Those in the business of creating—writers, artists, musicians, chefs, seamstresses, carpenters, graphic designers, to name a few—know their work requires a dash of boldness. Otherwise, their creations will never be more than a vague picture in their heads.

That's because to create—and to share your creations with others—is to face your fears. Every creation uses part of your soul for its foundation, and it's very difficult to let others see something so personal. What if they don't like it? What if they don't understand what you're trying to accomplish? And worse of all, what if they mock you for trying?

As a writer/editor combo, I am constantly aware of how others are picking apart my words. I worry about being too preachy, too vague, too naive. It's tempting to remove all vestiges of my personality in an attempt to write something that offends no one and garners no disagreements. But who wants to read something that bland?

Which is why boldness is essential to creativity. However you use your creative powers, you have to be willing to take risks. To create something people won't like. To create something no one has seen before. It's only when you create something truly meaningful to you that it will be meaningful to someone else—and you can only accomplish that by stretching outside your comfort zone.

The index is almost long enough to be a real index.

Crossing a writerly milestone

"We received a lot of great entries for this contest, and it took some time to read through them all. Although we did not select [your story] as an award winner, we are delighted you considered [us] as a potential home for your work."

My first rejection email. It's official: I'm a real writer.

One of my New Years resolutions this year was to enter 12 writing contests. I haven't had the guts or the work ethic to do this before, but after combing through my budget, I realized I would have to get creative to come up with an extra $7,000 dollars by year's end to pay for the rest of grad school if I wanted to avoid taking out another loan.

My solution: continue to put a chunk of money into my Money Market account every month, keep an eye out for manageable freelance opportunities, and enter writing contests like crazy. Publishers offer anywhere from $100-$3,000 to their grand prize winners, and I figured if I was persistent enough, I was bound to catch some of the cash being thrown around to prospective writers.

I was prepared to polish some of my blog entries, to submit short stories I've written for grad school so far, and to write fresh pieces that fit the parameters of any publication I liked. I gritted my teeth whenever I saw the words "Entrance fee required," but I knew I would have to invest a little bit if I wanted a big payoff.

What I wasn't prepared for, though, was how scary it would be to actually click the "Submit" button. I didn't expect to feel so vulnerable, like I was taking a giant leap of faith off a cliff. I've never been good at opening up with anyone, and here I was, sharing a small piece of my soul with a committee of complete strangers.

And then came the rejection. I waited for the hit to my self-esteem to come, for the crushing realization that I'm a failure, and for the intense need for brownies to make everything all better. None of it came. Instead, I felt liberated. 

My classmates in my grad school program always make snarky references to their growing pile of rejection letters. While I could commiserate with them, I couldn't really relate to that experience. So when I got my first rejection, I felt like I had crossed a crucial milestone to being a real writer. No writer makes it big on their first try--they usually have to pick themselves off the ground over and over again before they see a glimmer of success. Now, finally, I can at least say I'm on the right path.

Instead of printing out my rejection email for the sole purpose of burning it, I am starting a collection. Each rejection is just another affirmation that I'm doing something, rather than just waiting for something amazing to happen. In fact, tonight I think I'll enter two more contests.

Cover letter for my next job

For my next job, I think I'll use some version of this letter for my cover letter:

Dear Sir:

I like words. I like fat buttery words, such as ooze, turpitude, glutinous, toady. I like solemn, angular, creaky words, such as straitlaced, cantankerous, pecunious, valedictory. I like spurious, black-is-white words, such as mortician, liquidate, tonsorial, demi-monde. I like suave "V" words, such as Svengali, svelte, bravura, verve. I like crunchy, brittle, crackly words, such as splinter, grapple, jostle, crusty. I like sullen, crabbed, scowling words, such as skulk, glower, scabby, churl. I like Oh-Heavens, my-gracious, land's-sake words, such as tricksy, tucker, genteel, horrid. I like elegant, flowery words, such as estivate, peregrinate, elysium, halcyon. I like wormy, squirmy, mealy words, such as crawl, blubber, squeal, drip. I like sniggly, chuckling words, such as cowlick, gurgle, bubble and burp.

I like the word screenwriter better than copywriter, so I decided to quit my job in a New York advertising agency and try my luck in Hollywood, but before taking the plunge I went to Europe for a year of study, contemplation and horsing around.

I have just returned and I still like words.

May I have a few with you?

(Taken from this website. You should check it out. It's cool.)

I have no desire to find a new job right now, but this letter makes me wish I had done my networking a little differently. And that I had a bigger vocabulary.

Writing = risky business

I came across a quote today that set the wheels in my head a-flurry:

"You have to be brave to take out that white sheet of paper and put on it words that could be evidence of your stupidity." --Sol Saks

Writing is risky business. What is put into writing stays in writing and cannot be taken back.

Unless you pull a Hitler and try to burn all the books, or try to pass a new bill that essentially shuts down sites like Wikipedia and Google . . .

One of the trickiest parts of writing, at least for non-powerful individuals such as myself, is showcasing to the world my ignorance. What if I misspell a word, or my ideas seem amateur, or I mix up my sports terminology, or *gasp* people find out that I really don't know everything? Surely that means I should hide in my room for the rest of my life rather than face the humiliation, right?

But wait--Sol Saks, whoever that guy is (it would be just my luck if this person turned out to be a woman)--says that writers are brave. Risking your reputation with the words you pen isn't as insignificant as some people think.

Just like with all things worth doing--like playing a musical instrument, raising children, administering to the sick, saving the world--some level of failure is possible, even for writers. All of our endeavors require a little bit of moxie, even those that only involve a brain and a keyboard (or pen and paper).

I probably doubly proved my point here by showing off my lack of knowledge at least seven times. And yet, I keep writing . . .

Year in review

Tomorrow marks a year since I started this blog. It's been a pretty fun year for me in the blogosphere. So fun, in fact, that I decided to take things one step further and make a printed version of this blog. After all, everyone knows that I don't like reading off of a screen, so it only makes sense to compile this blog into a physical book format.

This is one of the few InDesign projects I've worked on in which I was able to clearly visualize what I wanted and then go and do it. I've hit very few roadblocks along the way, and if I've neglected this blog a little bit, I've had a great time designing my book in the interim. The book-making process is tons of fun, especially when you are your own boss.

As I was compiling/editing entries, in the back of my mind I was trying to determine a theme in the topics of my blog posts. Some topics were easy to classify--the weather, Harry Potter, work--but some were just plain random and couldn't really be put in a category with anything other than itself. I remember quite distinctly talking about my blog during various job interviews. The interviewee would say, "Tell me about your blog" and I would tell them that I used it to write about whatever I felt like writing about. They would look slightly annoyed and ask, "Can you be a little more specific?" to which I would reply, "I write about whatever I'm thinking about, like nature, school, work, books, dentists, clothes . . ." until they realized that I meant what I said--I write about whatever I feel like writing about. I have no ulterior motives other than to entertain myself.

So, I think I succeeded on my goal for this blog. However, if I had to pinpoint an overall theme (though it still doesn't apply to everything I talked about), it would probably be change. When I first started this blog, I wondered if it would become obsolete after a year after covering all the holidays, season changes, and such. But if there's one thing I've learned in the last year, it's that life is an ongoing mystery waiting to be discovered. So, rest assured that this blog won't become inactive. :)

A few random facts about my first year in the blogosphere:

• I published 101 posts.


• Tuesday was my most popular blogging day with 26 posts, while Sunday was my least popular day, with only 4 posts.


• The book form of this blog will be over 200 pages (8x10) long. Which means it's going to cost a lot to "publish" it.


• My favorite post, off the top of my head, would have to be "Dentist appointments and car repair shops."


• I think I used the phrase "Harry Potter" more than any other phrase. 107 times, to be exact (that's about once per post). So, if I haven't convinced all of my readers to give Harry Potter a chance, I have failed as a human being.

I intended to make this list longer, but it's like 15 minutes past my dinner time and I'm too hungry to think straight. The only problem is that Danielle is cooking tonight, which means I've got to wait at least another hour to eat. I am definitely not a fan of eating dinner at 8:00. Maybe she's trying to kill me off.

But until then, adios, and happy anniversary! Or, something like that. :)

The wonderful distraction of blogging

I think I know what to say the next time someone asks me what my dream job would be: blogging.

Not just writing a blog or two or twelve, but reading and interacting with other blogs as well. It doesn't even really matter what the blog is about--books, food, sports, movies, healthcare, music, lava lamps, or trampolines--for some reason, the world of blogging is just fascinating to me.

There are many social media sites out there, but I'll admit that blogs are the most distracting for me. I like to broaden my understanding about the world and impress myself with my much knowledge. While some bloggers have a large audience and must follow certain protocols, many bloggers blog for personal reasons with no plans to impress (unless they're posting pictures of their kids, of course). It is through blogs that individuals can really make their writing voice shine, and I just can't get enough of it.

Not to mention the fact that I am more addicted to writing than I perhaps ever have been.

My Grandma Rushton gave me my first journal when I was eight years old, and since then it has been weirdly cool to me to ink out my own adventures on a coarse piece of paper. And then it became a religious habit to write every day whether I had anything interesting to say or not; I'm pretty sure I wrote one of the longest, most thorough records of the life of a teenage girl. (That is, if you count boys, school, boys, emotional breakdowns, and boys as thorough.)

Journaling wasn't my only outlet, however. Until I entered high school, I had several "trashy Mormon novels" (as Mr. Dahlquist would call them) in the works, many of which involved softball, my stuffed animals, and 'N Sync. I'll be the first to say they weren't very good--the stories were mostly what I imagined my life to be like in a perfect world; they didn't really involve much plot or originality.

By about high school, I had kind of given up on the notion of being a writer when I grew up. In my mind, a "writer" constituted someone who wrote chapter books, and I clearly didn't have the imagination to write a publishable novel.

It wasn't until I started my own blog that I really began to discover my passion for writing again. I enjoyed writing papers (minus the research part) for my college classes, but it wasn't what I would call thrilling. It didn't cause my heart to race with excitement when I was trying to fall asleep at night. I enjoyed it for the thinking and brain stretching it required, but that was about it.

When I started my blog, however, I finally combined the "funness" of writing a novel with the stimulating brain stretching I had come accustomed to in college, and found a marvelously entertaining pasttime. This was more fun than writing in my journal, and not nearly as frustrating as trying to force the creativity necessary to create whole new worlds. I could write about the world as I saw it, using my own voice and style.

I read somewhere that Brandon Sanderson writes for like 12 hours a day. At first, that seemed inspiringly crazy to me. I could not imagine spending that much time doing anything, no matter how much you liked it. But he insisted that he loved it; his career was also his favorite hobby, so the time he spent writing never felt like work to him.

I wasn't able to understand that until recently. I have always been a bit wary of pursuing a career with something I was passionate about. That is one of the main reasons I decided not to pursue music in college. I was afraid that I would get sick of playing the piano, that it would become work rather than play.

Now, however, I believe that work and play can in fact be one and the same. I am one of those strange individuals who needs writing to live a happy, peaceful life. You know--one of those people who isn't always entirely in this world. Writing is how I work through my problems, how I express myself, how I manage to function like a somewhat normal human being.

So my favorite thing about blogging is this: it is never ending. As long as the human brain continues to work, fresh ideas will continue to circulate and people will continue to write about them in interesting ways. I don't know what I would have done in a world where 10 books was a vast library. I probably would have just been really bored all the time.

The ups and downs of freelance

One of the things that has always attracted me about a career in writing and/or editing is the freedom it gives you to choose your own hours and workplace. What could be better than working at home in your pajamas?

However, I'm not quite as excited about the prospect of doing freelance work as I once was. It would just be so much easier to have a 9–5 job where I showed up every day, did my work, and then went home. Freelance work requires a lot more patience and motivation—you have to actually abide by the hours you set, and a lot of the time (at least for beginners like me) you have to risk not being paid much for awhile in order to work your way up. I have a very hard time getting myself to do something if I don't know exactly what's in it for me—this is the biggest reason why I want a stable, full-time job.

Unfortunately, the search for a full-time job has been a bit of waste of time to say the least, so I have been putting forth more of an effort to find freelance work. And believe me, it's not a whole lot better than searching for a "real" job.

However, I did make a few breakthroughs during the month of November. I applied for a copywriter position in Provo and, typically, was their second choice, so they decided to keep me on as a freelancer. I've only done one project so far, and I'm starting to doubt that I'll get another one because it's been a few weeks, but it was exciting to negotiate a pay rate that was worthy of someone with a degree.

In addition, I also found a job as a writer at Examiner.com. I found several websites that hire freelance writers, and Examiner.com was the most popular one for the search engines. I was flipping through the openings in the religion section, and was delighted to find one entitled "Narnia, Hobbits, and Christianity," which is basically what my senior capstone class at BYU was all about. I never dreamed that I would ever actually make a profit off what I learned in that class, but it seemed like I had found a possibility. So I applied, submitted one of my analysis papers from the class, and waited.

A few weeks later, I got an email from Examiner.com saying that they wanted me to be the "Christian Speculative Fiction Examiner" for the Provo area. While a little sad that I wouldn't be writing about Narnia and hobbits all the time, I was pretty excited to get such a long job title. It makes it sound a lot more important than it really is. I've spent the last few days figuring out how the system works, and I think I am going to give it a try.

Here is where you all come in: most of the money I can make is generated from traffic, session length, and publishing frequency. So while I still have no idea how much money I could actually make off of this little column, I decided to try it out because (1) I need something to do, and (2) I am running out of money. It's time to take desperate measures. And, if any of you would like to write about your area of expertise on Examiner.com, there is a referral program and I get 50 bucks for each person I bring along . . .

So, the URL to my page is http://www.examiner.com/christian-speculative-fiction-1-in-salt-lake-city/angela-carter. Really long, I know, so thank goodness for the copy-and-paste function. This is very much an experiment and if anyone has any questions or suggestions, I would greatly appreciate any help I can get.

I apologize in advance if you get sick of reading my stuff. :) And to prove my sincerity, I am going to log off now and do something that doesn't involve thinking or begging. Farewell.

Journal writing and learning from the past

I spend a lot of time with my journals. I write in my current one about once a week, and I am in the process of typing up my journals, something I try to do a little bit of each day. I am currently on Journal #9, which spans my 8th-9th grade years. It was with this journal that I made the goal to write every single day of the year, and I almost delivered on that promise. I only missed 15 days during the year 2002. Which means that I have had to type up way too many entries about an emotional teenage girl who just couldn't quite fit in with any of the "cool" crowds and who worried about not having enough money to buy new school clothes.

I got my first journal from my Grandma Rushton the day I was baptized, and I've been a bit obsessed with journal writing ever since. Maybe I am just incredibly self-centered and feel that it is my duty to tell the world what happened during every stage of my life. However, there is more to it than that. :)

I have narrowed my journal-writing obsession to 5 main reasons:

• I have a hard time letting things go. It isn't until I have written something down that I can put it aside and move on with my life.
• The writer in me refuses to be silenced. I need to write: for me, writing is almost like breathing. It's a part of who I am and I love doing it.
• It is crucial to the decision-making process. I'm not one to shout out to the entire world everything that is going on in my life. In fact, I am pretty secretive about a lot of things. Writing in my journal is how I work through things and make decisions. It's a pretty good system, I think.
• It helps me sleep. I have never been a good sleeper. Don't get me wrong--I love sleeping--but falling asleep and staying asleep has always been very difficult for me. However, writing helps me sleep. I do most of my intense thinking at night (which doesn't help) and I have found that writing something down before I go to bed does wonders in clearing my mind. And since I started a blog I have been sleeping so much better. True, having a consistent sleeping schedule helps, but if my mind is racing there is no way I will fall asleep, regardless of how tired I am. Writing is one of the best soothers of the mind that I've been able to find.
• For my posterity. General authorities are always telling us to write things down and I took that advice to heart when I was young. Now I feel duty-bound at times to keep my journal current. I think it's fascinating to read other people's journals, and maybe some day one of my grandchildren will feel the same way. Half the time I am writing to them rather than myself.

So aside from journal writing actually being fun and fulfilling, I have also received many blessings from this practice. Even before I started typing my journals, I always kept an old journal by my bedside so that I could read it whenever I was having difficulty sleeping or something. And it has always been fascinating to me to watch myself struggle through something and then come out victorious. I vividly remember certain experiences that I didn't think would ever end, but I got through them and am stronger today because of it. It baffles me sometimes the things that threw me when I was a teenager or a child, but it is a reminder to me that I have grown and overcome some barriers, even if I still have many more to overcome.

It also entertains me to see how little I have changed in certain areas, too. I always had a bit of an attitude, and my sense of humor can be traced back to my childhood days. It's just nice to know that no matter how much you change, the person you started out being will always be inside you somewhere.

Many times I will read entries in which I was struggling with something similar to what I am dealing with today. It's almost like having my own set of personal scriptures--I can look to the past to find answers about my future. I don't usually find any profound answers other than that I made it though it then, so I can certainly do it now.

And, of course, I love reading about the funny stories, memorable vacations, and growing experiences. I have always been a little bit afraid I would forget everything. That fear is alleviated, however, because I have written things down, whether they are important or not. I will always have my past with me even if I forget the finer points. This is why if there is ever a fire and I can only save a few things, I will go for my journals first.