It really is hard to be a writer when you start out late, have no formal education, and are busy with family, cutting wood, photography, being a minister, a volunteer addict, and even more. The need to write though, can be overwhelming. It takes over your life if you try and ignore it.

I find myself writing on scraps of paper in the doctor's office. For me, being a passenger in a car is particularly hazardous. I have to have paper and pen or a laptop plugged into the local power socket. I have been known to scribble on maps, to jot notes on receipts, to repeat phrases over and over trying to memorize them, and above all, to write on my hands. (Embarrassing when you get to the wedding with ink on your hands)

Life as a writer is filled with hazards. Going fishing without paper and you find yourself writing on the bait container. (it wasn't a masterpiece!) If you find yourself lining up worms as the alphabet, don't feel alone. Seeing J's whenever you see a hook, you are not alone. I have been known to use the stick and mud method, but the save button does not work on that particular format.

Writers have a need to write. It doesn't matter if you haven't been to college, writers are born, not made. I can't get up in front of a group of people to speak, but give me something to write about and I am in! If you don't give me something to write about, I will find something, anything, that I find interesting.

I probably break more grammar rules in each paragraph than the average 6 year old. I don't care. I write the same way I talk. It works for me and if some don't like it, they don't have to read it. Come to think of it, I don't think anyone is. As a writer born, I can't care if they don't read it. I have to write so I make up an audience in my head and write for and to them. Maybe someday that same audience will be real, you just never know.