Learning how to write

When I was in school, creative writing was probably my favorite and best subject. Was I a story teller? I’m not quite sure, but I really enjoyed writing. I was never excellent at it, but with the proper training and coaching I believe that I could have improved a lot. More than thirty years ago, when I came to America, I was terrified to write in English, and especially to write business letters and other memoranda. Obviously, over time and after countless trials and errors, my writing skills improved to the point that I began to enjoy the activity and did my very best to crafting the quality of my written pieces. In the meantime, my French took a hiatus as I hardly ever used it, except for a few hand-written letters and notes to my family. About two years ago, as I left my last job and wondered what I would do next, I considered that writing might be a great creative outlet and promised myself that I would plunge into it. I had a long list of ideas that I accumulated over the years and thought that it would be easy to pick one up and turn it into a… book. Boy was I naïve! I forgot that - just like with running, my favorite addiction - one’s need to develop a discipline and a habit for writing. As a result, my good intentions stayed just that for the past one and a half year, until that day of March 2007 when, while skiing, I ruptured my Achilles’ tendon. My temporary disability gave me the opportunity to start a daily blog, which I decided would be bilingual (English and French) to reconcile me with my native tongue that I had ignored for so long. There have been ups and down in the writing and publishing of my blogs, but recently, I’ve been more consistent with it. I now enjoy it much more, think about it at night, look for ideas, and I hope to expand the scope of that activity in the very near future!