.....and Stories

Five years of blogging.

Five years of finding my inner writer.

Five years of figuring out what should and shouldn't be written down for the "world" to read.  

Five years of figuring out what I do and don't want to write about.  

Five years to find confidence and the belief in myself to see that I have my own style, my own perspective, and my own talents that are unique to me.

It's taken five years, but I've finally found my unique voice in the blogosphere.

I'm not sure if anyone noticed the slight name change and "about me" that I made a couple of weeks ago.  The thought came to me in the shower, as most brilliant thoughts do.

In 2011, I made a huge change.  I closed the chapter on all I had written on Simply Jenn-Sational and began There is a Season.  I contemplated the change for several months well before I went public with it.

I think at the end of the day, I felt more grown up than when I had first started writing.  For a long time, I tried to write like other writers I enjoyed reading rather than writing my own words. I wanted to start crispy and fresh because so much inside of me was feeling new.  And whether or not anyone else thinks so, most of my writing since then has been reflective of that.

Plain and simple, I write from my heart.  And that wasn't always the case.

In the past year since I've been writing here, I've noticed that my passion involves stories. I am a story-teller. Seasons and Stories feels fitting for how I write and where my passion for story lies. I love to read them, tell them, and listen to them.  I could sit for hours listening to men and women share their stories and hearts with me.

Just two weeks ago, I began gathering pieces of my own story that I've written over the years.  Even hitting copy and paste made me feel anxious because I feel like I'm doing something that I was meant to do and it's nothing short of terrifying.  Announcing anything on a blog makes things feel official in a way that instills fear in me rather than courage or motivation.

But I've started piecing together my book - my story.  The parts I want to write down and share with the world.  I've officially begun the process.

I don't know where it will take me or what will ever become of it.  I just know that I need to do it.

And I know that it only took five years to finally feel brave enough to begin.