How the writing started

In this new year with no resolutions but lots of memories and introspection, I reviewed the chronology of my writing career. Here's a little about me. . .in January of 2011, I became a casualty of a company merger and lost a job that I loved and had been at for 8 years. I got on Unemployment and eventually had to make a phone call to them. I was on hold for what seemed forever, but was really one and a half hours. As I listened over and over to the same damn messages and instructions, I got pissed that no one was helping me. I needed a job - the Unemployment Office could hire me since they obviously didn't have enough people working there! I started writing every hateful thought I had on an old-fashioned (and still my preferred writing tool) paper notepad. When I reread those 6 pages later, I realized how funny it was.

And that was the start. I knew others needed to read it to add levity to the gravity of their similar situations and I shopped it around to some local newspapers. Mr. Buffington of the Hummelstown Sun gave me my first dose of editing. "Cut it in half and don't say it if it isn't necessary." Wonderful words of advice. I chopped 1,000 words into 500 and it was printed as a letter to the editor in the Sun.

Meanwhile, Tonya Bibb (Neighborhood Chatter/Community Courier) replied to the query I sent with a thank you, and a, "You're a very good writer." That meant a lot coming from another writer and I still have the email.

From that blast off in the Sun, I began my column in the local bimonthly Press and Journal publication, Woman. Six years later, I still have sumthin 2 say:)