Some people say that beginnings are the hardest things to make; that it's scary to put yourself out there and begin something new. I, however, tend to disagree with that. Beginnings are easy - they have to be made from the very minute we leave the safety of our mother's womb and enter this earthly state - it's endings that are hard.
Whether you're someone that has known me for x-amount of time or you're someone that happened to stumble upon this blog by one means or another, I should use this blog as a little bit of a back story. My name is Hanna, I am 15 years old, and I live in small-town, Ohio. Pretty exciting, I know. I've been dealt my share of heartache, having lost too many loved ones ~ and those are the wounds that never ease. These wounds, however, brought me to find love - in the form of an art, at least. On January 18th, 2008, I began writing.
I don't feel like explaining everything I've ever been through or how I came about writing specifically, because I've done that a few times on this blog (if you go to my "Catch Me" page, you can probably find it).
In the four years writing and I have been involved, I have changed a lot, and so has my craft. I spent a good deal of time holding back what I wanted to say, what I wanted to write for the fear that others may not like and and may reject it. In a way, I wrote as though my grandmother would read it - and her alone (Hi Mamaw!). Which there was nothing wrong with that, but my writing lacked an edge, it lacked the emotion and realism of life. I wrote this way until I lost my cousin in Afghanistan on August 28th, 2010. After that, (well, when I started writing again 6 months later) I decided I was done holding back. I had felt such extreme emotions in those 6 months and I wasn't doing any justice to myself nor my subject matter to sugar-coat things. The fact was, I had been through hell. My words and story had to convey that.
I'll be the first to admit I was scared to begin writing again. The project itself scared me because I was writing about a man that I held up so high in my mind and I wondered how I could possibly do justice to him. I was scared of how my family would react to me writing it, even though I had asked his close relatives for permission before I even let myself form the plot line. I was scared of how I, myself, would react. There were emotions I wasn't sure if I was ready to sort through and bring back up. Mostly, I was scared to change my voice. It wasn't until I wrote for a little while that I realized that I wasn't changing my voice; this had been my voice all along, I had just never let myself hear it.
I've finished many things in my life; everything from math problems to relationships. And each thing you finish, although you're proud of your work, you still have that nagging thought lingering in your head Is this really done? Did I do it right? that causes you to second guess yourself. I know I often have this feeling in Algebra when I'm not sure if I've done a problem correctly. I've felt this when I've decided to end relationships and I have to ask myself if I really want to end it, knowing that once the ties have been severed, they cannot be sutured again. I've felt it at every funeral I've ever attended knowing that it was not my choice to end the relationship, and knowing that I did not want to. But the time that I've had this feeling completely consume and overwhelm me was on July 18th, 2009 around 9pm. I was finishing my first novel and it literally took everything in me to type those last words that I had had planned out for months.
So, beginning isn't hard, ending is.
But, at the moment, I'm doing neither. The only thing I'm beginning is a weekly promise to blog/vlog. Every Tuesday. Why Tuesday?
1) Today makes 2 years since I last saw my cousin, for whom this project is dedicated.
2) I really hate Tuesdays.
So, welcome to my Wonderful World of Writing here on WonderfulWritingWebsite. I have been Officially Inspired.
Stick around, the journey is only beginning.
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