I’ve always liked to write. I don’t mean it in the way people usually mean when they say someone is a “writer.” I’ve never studied writing beyond the required school classes.
I’ve never wanted to write a novel, become a journalist, or make writing my profession. But I’ve been writing for almost as long as I can remember.
I received a diary as a gift when I was about 8 years old. It was very popular to have a diary at that time, and I was very excited about it. I wrote down my thoughts, experiences, feelings, and whatever was happening in my life. I didn’t do it because someone else was going to read it. After all, a diary is meant to be private. I did it because I knew what a diary was for. I started writing, and it started my impulse to write down my world.
Later, in my teens and college years, sites like LiveJournal and MySpace became popular as online personal diaries grew. I remember my college roommate writing the most beautiful narratives on her LiveJournal. (Side note: she later started a business becoming a real-life Cyrano de Bergerac.) I wanted to explore that more, so I continued writing, putting my daily life onto paper. It helped me process my experiences without me even realizing it.
Then, when I traveled in my 20s, I wrote a personal travel blog so that my friends and family back home could keep up with me. I loved experiencing something during the day and writing about it at night - not just to share it with others, but to keep as a record for myself.
The plan was never to become a “content creator.” I don’t even know if such a term existed back in those days. (I like to think I was in the first wave of original travel bloggers, but maybe I’m dreaming.)
Then I started this blog, From Pennies to Plenty, in 2016. The content has changed over the years, and my reasons for blogging have changed too. For many years, I blogged as a business. I focused on growing readership and monetizing the blog in various ways.
Nowadays, I blog about the things I want to write about simply because I want to, regardless of how many people will read my writing. My blog has changed, but the impulse to write has remained.
And after all these years, I still don’t consider myself a writer. I’ve never been to a writing workshop. I don’t have writing credentials. I don’t even think I got an A in English class!
I make plenty of mistakes when I write, and my grammar isn’t perfect.
But I don’t actually think that matters too much. I don’t have to be a professional dancer to dance. I don’t have to be a professional pianist to play the piano. And I don’t have to be a professional writer to write.
It’s just something I do, and something I’ve been doing for much of my life, to express myself and process the world.
Maybe that’s enough to make me a writer, even if I’ve never called myself one.