Hey guys. Happy Friday. I’ll be posting every other Friday, just so you know what to expect, and I do hope that you read and subscribe to my newsletter, please and thank you. I’ll be putting that out as my book get’s closer to launch to let you know what might be coming and any events etc. A writer is nothing without readers, so I am forever grateful for your support.

Writing is incredibly tough and can often be unrewarding, but yet people who write, I’ve heard repeatedly say, “I write because I cannot not write,” and I find this to be the perfect saying. I have been writing my whole life in one way or another, and I was thinking the other day about when I started. My first memory of writing anything was after I received a diary as a kid, like so many did, especially little girls. It was pink and had a gold lock and key. I remember being so excited that I ran right to my room, unlocked it, pulled out the pink pen attached, and wrote. I wasn’t sure how to start but recalled Marcia Brady, writing in hers on The Brady Bunch ( I know, I am dating myself here).

Dear Diary, June 10, 1983, Mom yelled at me today, and Michal Tortalano gave me an extra pen—

My heart swooned thinking about Michael, documenting the day, and for a while, I liked writing about my feelings, but soon I found the form in this to be unsatisfactory and dull. It was then I tucked the pink book away, pushing it far under my mattress, not wanting it to get lost like Marcia’s, when Cindy Brady, her sister, accidentally gave it to the guy collecting donations. I didn’t want anyone reading about my love for Michael; I’d certainly die if that happened, so I put it away for a while.

It was a usual Saturday afternoon a few months later, and I was lying in bed and popped on the radio. Music had always entranced me. The instruments, beats, and rhythm changes made me feel things that no one understood in my eight-year-old life, along with things I didn’t understand but felt anyway in the songs. The lyrics took me places and validated my feelings in ways no one else came close to. I’d close my eyes, listening to the lonely hollows in Prince’s “When Doves Cry,” to next throwing my fist in the air in rebellion as Twisted Sister’s “We’re Not Gonna Take It” burst through the speakers. Then I remembered my little pink diary and pulled it out from under the bed, feeling compelled to write. There was no Dear Diary or date. I wrote what I felt but structured it like a song. It had a rhythmic pattern and a repeated verse. I did this often, and it felt different. It felt natural and free. It felt pretty and sad, and it satisfied me greatly. It was poetry, and I didn’t know it, and it pleased me in every way. It still does.

What’s your creative story? Do you have one? Writing, painting, singing, acting—there is so much we can express in art. I’d love to hear your thoughts.