How do you Write? Bravely and with Reckless Passion SOL Day 8/31

Today's post actually started in 10th grade Creative Writing Class.  I have always loved to write, but typically if I wrote anything I just kept it somewhere, who knows where, but I definitely did not share my writing.  I remember when I discovered the joy and passion of writing in my Creative Writing Class.  Of course at that age I was a lovesick poet.  I wrote poetry about love and jealously and thought I was a rock star poet.  Fast forward to my sophomore year in college when my English professor called  me into his office.  I was anxious to see why he had called me to his sanctimonious office (I went to a private Catholic school no tone or sarcasm implied here).  As I walked into his office, he held my paper out to me, my first college paper, and then he  abruptly said "Miss you have a lovely voice but your writing is littered with grammatical errors." OUCH!  As desperately as I tried to hang on to the "lovely voice" piece of this encounter it was lost in his final word- LITTERED.

I tried to continue putting my thoughts and feelings into print, but the reckless abandon that had once allowed my passion to spill out of me and on the page was lost. I was now paused with worries of commas, fragments and run-on sentences.  My enjoyment of writing had turned to angst. The power words have over us is untouchable.These words had scared my core and halted my writing all together.

It wasn't until @CathyMere of Merely Day by Day and Reflect and Refine nudged me ever so gently to start blogging that I was able to rediscover the passion I once felt for writing.  I have tremendous respect for Cathy and this community of writers, your nudges, questions and comments have helped me rediscover the passion and connections between words and paper.  I still have trepidations about commas,  run on sentences and fragments, but I forge on because this writing community is safe, this community of writers and readers read deeper than grammar mishaps and read for message.  I don't know the words to assemble here to thank Cathy for what she has given back to me or the readers who so kindly look past the mishaps of blog writing, but I hope you know I now sit down to write with passion and much less worry.
                                                         
   Although, worry will always be there, words are forever.

So when Trish of Today I Love asked "How do you Write?" I answer~ bravely and with reckless passion.