Time to start posting again...

Has it really been four weeks since I've posted?  I can't believe it.  I kept telling myself I would post later in the week after my schedule lightened up a bit, but obviously I haven't.  This week I'm turning it around.  I'm excited to be back in the cyber discussions and read what everyone has been posting about.  I'm not one for working too far ahead, but I thought the portfolio was due last week in class, and thus, am already done with it.  For the first time in a long time, I can write the blogs calmly, knowing everything else for this week's class is already done.

So, for the first of four blog topics... my portfolio.

When home for Thanksgiving, I dug through my parent's dusty attic until I found a plastic storage box  with "John Henry" written in permanent marker on the lid.  After digging through yellowed newspapers and matte photos I found what I was looking for: a stack of writing journals from elementary school.  I read about my third grade birthday gifts, a class Halloween party (including the "Witch's Brew"), golfing with my grandpa, and my second place finish at the pinewood derby.  The writing is detailed- and my handwriting was better then than it is now- but my language is far from graceful.  Still, this was a great place for me to practice the act of putting a pencil to the page.  I was also hoping to find a story I wrote for a young writer's conference or one I wrote about my grandma growing up on a farm, but neither was in the box.

The rest of my portfolio is stuff I've written in college, for writing classes and outside class.  I only included one page from an analytical essay because I wanted to focus on my creative writing.  In reality, almost all my writing is analytical papers of characterization or metaphor, but most of the essays are the same to me.  My first writing class in college was a workshop I took to fulfill my fine arts gen ed.  From there I took a few other classes, so I have samples from all that.  I also included my afternoon attempt at a children's book and a page from my "idea book."  My writing is nothing spectacular, but I have enjoyed writing most of what I've written and I can be proud of it for what it is.  That's where I am right now as a writer- someone with lots of lost ideas and jotted down stories- but that's OK by me.