Writing: Finding My Calling
I just replied to a question on another blog about when I realized I was a writer. I thought I would continue this discussion on my own blog. I’d also like to ask you a similar question: When did you know you were a ____ (writer…artist…coach…entrepreneur…scientist…whatever)?
Writing has always been as close to me as breathing. I grew up on a ranch in Montana in the days when there was just one television station, so I read constantly and wrote a lot of REALLY bad poetry as a teenager.
I also loved learning foreign languages, which in turn taught me a great deal about English. And I had a wonderful, inspiring English teacher when I was a junior in high school. Her name was Mrs. Quanbeck, and (30 years later) she is still my favorite teacher–even though I’ve since earned a BA and two MAs! (I tracked her down through the Internet last year, called her out of the blue, and told her how much she’d meant to me. It was wonderful talking with her.)
As an adult, I’ve taught writing and English as a second language to hundreds of college students, and I’ve written my share of corporate communications, too. I’ve also edited lots of stuff–business communications and academic papers, mostly.
My major passions revolve around human performance development and lifelong learning, so I tend to write nonfiction articles, ebooks, and ecourses that teach something.
What most astonishes me about writing, however, is the power it has to help us learn, create and heal. It is such a wonderful tool for self-discovery–whether we understand how to make our verbs agree with their subjects or not!