​This is my first post on The Pastry Box. To say I’m a little intimidated would be an understatement. So many well respected and excellent writers have shared thoughts on this domain. Goodness gracious, have you read some of these thoughts that have been shared throughout the years? These people here know how to write. They know how to shape a thought into something so much more. What an incredible talent. Unfortunately for you, I am not one of those people.

I used to think that I was a pretty good writer. Then I read some of the essays that are shared in the circles I travel in and in places like this very site and I quickly realized, I am not a ‘pretty good’ writer. Don’t get me wrong, I do have thoughts I’d like to share, and I do have opinions I’d like to argue for but I struggle to craft my words in a way that is just so. Remember when Kevin Spacey’s limp slowly faded away as he walked out of that police station and you ran up to your VCR and rewound the tape to watch it again because you couldn’t believe what you just saw? That’s the kind of reaction I’d like my writing to have on it’s readers. Dream big, right? Thing is, I know why I’m not a great writer. I know why I’m not even close to being a great writer. 

I don’t spend a lot of time writing.

Like any good skill, writing takes work. Work in this case is a lot of writing. I don’t spend a lot of time writing because time is something that I have very little of. There’s also words and grammar and sometimes I like to use a lot of commas and people are all like you don’t need all those commas but look at this sentence no commas how you like me now. And then there is fear. The sad thing is that I’m likely not the only ‘not that great’ writer out there. And when I let my fear get in the way, we all suffer. It’s one less voice, whether it’s mine or yours, to speak out, to share a point of view that might make you reconsider yours or to give you clarity on that confusing subject matter. 

Truth is, I want to be a good writer. I want to be able to share my thoughts in a way that is articulate, clever and well thought out–basically the opposite of LOST Season 3-6. So this year I’m going to share ten or so thoughts with you on The Pastry Box. They likely won’t contain that Keyser Söze revelation where you go back and re-read what you just read while simultaneously shaking your head in agreement while you’re munching on a carrot and you don’t realize it but your co-workers are starting to get annoyed at the loud crunching the carrot is making but you don’t care because my writing is that good (should that have had commas?). Who knows, you may enjoy it, or you may skip right over it. Either way, I’m going to write. And while I likely won’t become great over this year, I will get better and I’m ok with that.