Noticing Newbies

Greetings everyone!

When I was in high school, our Psychology teacher "forced" us to keep a daily journal for the entire semester. At the time I hated writing and dragged my feet like a Missouri mule. BUT... by the time the semester was over I was hooked, and have been writing ever since. I still try to write every day, even if it's only "I don’t know what to write today". I find that too often our brains become far too cluttered with technology, and those are the times I jump in my truck and head for the mountains where I can sit quietly, surrounded by nature, and ground myself again. Those are the times I am most inspired to write. .

I love phenology - keeping track of nature and the changing of the seasons, and that is the direction in which most of my writing goes. I love writing poetry, as well as anecdotes about things that have happened in my life.

I was a newsletter editor for a local organization that I still belong to, which also allowed me to include my own short articles as “filler” when needed. I currently write newsletter articles for the Travelers' Rest Preservation and Heritage Association, a non profit "friends" group of Travelers' Rest State Park in Montana. I've had a few short articles published in small, local newspapers, but the highlight of my writing "career" was when one of my stories was published in an issue of Montana Magazine!

A few years ago I signed up for a creative writing course for Adult Ed, and one of our assignments was to write a one page essay about a job I had when I was a teenager. I wrote about a job I had working on a ranch, and that one page essay has since morphed into a mostly fictional story of over 200 pages! I don't know if I'll ever do anything with it; mostly it's a sort of therapy for those days when I feel the need to escape the technological world but cannot for any number of reasons.

I’m also a photographer and have been taking photos ever since I was old enough to understand that when you press the shutter, you get a picture! While I do love to write, photography is my true passion and I am seldom found without my camera.

I look forward to some of the challenges and assignments offered on this site, to share some of my writing with you, and to share yours.