Writing to Me is...

Today's post is in conjunction with the Blog-A-Licious Blog Tour a fantastic blog hop that brings together bloggers of all genres, backgrounds and locations. In today's hop, the blog featured before Widowsphere is Big Ideas. You can find it at www.tinahoggatt.wordpress.com The blog featured after Widowsphere is the captivating www.blogaliciousblogs.blogspot.com Do stop by and say hello plus some of us are having giveaways and contests. Enjoy!

Here are my thoughts on what writing means to me:

When I was four years old, I composed a poem about a chicken, a rabbit and a pig, then announced I would be a writer when I grew up. My parents were impressed but none of us believed my prediction would come true. In my day, when you grew up, you became June Cleaver. You wore your pearls as you vacuumed the living room and made scrumptious meals for Ward and the boys. Maybe you wrote a few notes on your monogrammed stationery, but you certainly didn't have time to sit down at your typewriter and compose a story or an essay, not with all the housework, gardening, mothering, and wife-ing.

But eventually I did become a writer. Romance novels first, then essays, and now I'm shopping a memoir. I can't imagine not writing. When I wrote novels, writing allowed me to escape (I needed to, with 3 teenagers in the house) to imagine, and to think of ways to describe the sex act without using real anatomical terms.

After my husband died, writing gave me an outlet for my grief and anger, a way to fill lonely, empty hours, and a place to preserve my memories.

Now through essays, I can think through problems and issues and perhaps give them a new slant. Blogging began as a means of connecting with and supporting other widows but it's become much more: a chance to express my views on things great and small and an opportunity to meet others who love writing as much as I do.

Life without writing could never be as full as life with writing.