I can be awfully slow to join in on things. Like, tail-end slow. Example: Lisa Frank. Any female my age must remember Lisa Frank. We’re talking a top designer here…albeit, a designer of school supplies. Folders, pencils, trapper keepers (remember how cool those were?), pencil boxes…there wasn’t an item to be had in the school supply aisle that Lisa Frank – with all her pinks and purples and unicorns and clouds – didn’t make.

I’m pretty sure Lisa Frank was at the height of her “coolness” between, oh, probably first grade and fifth grade. I spent most of those years Lisa Frank item-less. Thus it is with great clarity I remember the first time I got a Lisa Frank trapper keeper. Bought it at K-Mart…in the middle of fifth grade.

By sixth grade, trapper keepers were out and Mead five-star notebooks completely and totally in.

Barely caught the tail-end of that one, I did.

‘Course, some things don’t necessarily have an end. Cell phones. Flared jeans. Facebook. I can’t say I joined in at the “end” of these things, but you can bet your britches I wasn’t in on the ground floor. Wasn’t til after college that I bought my first cell phone, and others had 400 Facebook friends before I finally joined. Why, I haven’t even read “Blue Like Jazz” yet. (And I call myself a graduate of a Christian liberal arts college…)

Anyway, all this to rather long-windedly say, I can be slow. And sometimes, reluctant to jump aboard the latest ship, depending on the nature of said ship.

Today’s ship: blogging.

For some reason, I’ve just never wanted to blog. Which is odd considering I love to write and quite often subject my friends to emails the length of Congressional bills. I’m not sure if it’s the fact that I don’t know what to write about (this from the girl who wants to write novels?)…or that I don’t want the responsibility of keeping up a blog (commitment, what a monster)…or that I just plain don’t think anybody’s going to care to read my blog…Most likely, it’s a combination of all those things.

But, I’ve recently become serious about pursuing this whole writing career thing. I really want to write a book. A good one. Like, Ted Dekker quality. (Minus the gore. Much as I love Ted Dekker, I don’t think there’ll be anybody in my stories pulling out other people’s eyes.) If somebody ever reacts to a story I’ve written the way I tend to do when finishing a Dekker novel – usually a mixture of goosebumps and an impossible-to-wipe-off grin and, sometimes, tears – yeah, that’d be a dream come true. I really, really want this.

So, as part of my getting serious thing, I attended my first writer’s conference in Colorado a couple weeks back. (Perhaps this is a good time to apologize to anyone who’s been around me since I got back – I’ve likely talked your head off about it ever since!) And one of the things we learned about at the conference was “building a platform.” It’s something publishers are looking for, especially from first-time novelists. They want to see that you already have a platform of readers, that you’re capable of “saying something,” something interesting enough for readers to come back for. And one of the ways to do that…blogging.

Thus, I’m setting my reluctance aside and joining the ranks of blogger-dom. Yeah, I’m a blogger now. A reluctant blogger. But a blogger.

And I think it’ll grow on me. Like cell phones (how could I live without one now?), flared jeans (boot-cut schmoot-cut), Facebook (wanna be my friend?)…

Plus, aside from the whole, “I’m blogging ’cause they told me to” thing, I think blogging will truly end up helping me as a writer. For one thing, it will discipline me. Truth is, much as I want to write an awesome story with eternal themes, multi-dimensional characters and a plot to miss sleep over, I’m not very good at living the writing life. Not like other writers I know, at least – the people who will get up at 4:30 a.m. to fit in a few hours of writing out of sheer dedication to the written word. No…me? I just like stories. I love them. I love telling them. And so, I’m trying. But I definitely don’t have the discipline thing down. I’m hoping blogging will help.

Also, I think blogging will loosen me up, stretch me out, get the creative juices flowing on a regular basis. Even if I can’t spend hours each day working on my book, I need to at least do some regular writing. This will force me into it.

And lastly, I’m hoping faithful blog readers will become a part of my writing process. See, I’m still questioning what I’ll write about in this blog and how often I’ll write an entry. And those questions will get answered as I go, I’m sure. (If you’ve got any swell ideas or suggestions for me, I’ll take ’em!) But I do think it’d be fun to devote entries here and there to talking about the novel-writing process, story ideas, questions I have about characters and plot-lines. Maybe I’ll ask for advice and input too.

For now, thanks for reading my first-ever blog post. I hope you come back. But before I go…isn’t Colorado pretty?

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