
Hello Readers!
Welcome to MJ’s Literary Theater! I am MJ and super excited to take you on this journey of mine to become a published author.
Creative writing has always been fun for me. In elementary school I remember writing this short story for Halloween about a girl who just moved into a house and across the street lived a ghost, who inevitably took the life of the girl. It was chock full of the spooky superstitions (house number 13, run down house, etc.) mainly because I read a few of soft thriller books. Funny thing is I can’t stand to watch horror movies (except Supernatural, although I do have a hard time re-watching the first few seasons) but writing them doesn’t bother me. I’m reminded of something one of my good friends from junior high and high school told me when we took a creative writing class. He said he writes about the stuff that scares him to help him not fear it anymore. I have to say it blew my mind that this guy feared anything, but it made a lot of sense. It sparked yet another series of novels I wanted to write but I’m jumping ahead a little bit.
So, after that amazing little short story, which holds a dear place in my heart, my next big adventure with creative writing was in junior high. I had an amazing English teacher for 7th grade and during our creative writing unit my class was asked to write a short story. The minimum page requirement was 2 pages. I don’t remember how long this assignment went on, but we turned in rough drafts and I had over 20 pages. The look of amazement on my teachers face when she had to make a maximum page requirement makes my life. I believe this was the first time she had to do that. I wish I still had that original 20+ page story about ants because I don’t remember much else about it. My mom had to help me cut it down to ten pages and that was one of the hardest things I had to do, but after this, I mastered the concept of short stories. My 7th grade English teacher will probably never know how influential she was in turning me towards being a writer, but I will be forever grateful.
Now in high school I had some ups and downs. I was always creating new worlds and writing about them. I have a binder full of my ideas that I’ve had over the years. I think 11th grade was my most successful year of writing though. My English teacher (yet again) had us write a 50-word blurb about ourselves. Do you know how hard that is? Seriously you should try it. I remember writing it about how I wrote about my dreams or something like that. He was very impressed with it. He even mentioned in class. (Yeah, I was one of THOSE students. Unassuming but a little bit of an overachiever.) This was also the year that I took my creative writing class and I have some awesome poems from it. My favorite is about a girl who went crazy and murdered the people that made her crazy. I’ve always wondered what my teacher thought about it but I’m sure he could see that my soul was crushed. That year, I dated a guy that was manipulative and abusive. It made for some great writing material but, um, it sucked in the long run. I didn’t write at all my senior year and for a while afterwards because I was still processing my trauma. I had to find a way that my writing didn’t involve him.
After I graduated, I attended one semester of college, got married in the middle of that semester, and got pregnant three months into my marriage. I planned to get pregnant soon but in the happiness of starting a family I forgot my passion for writing. It wasn’t until after my second child was born that I started writing again. I created a new world with new characters, and I fell in love with it. I’ve had an on again, off again relationship with this book. Finding time to write with little kids is hard. I get lost in my writing. I can’t really spend hours writing like I used to when children are interrupting every five minutes. My kids are still little, as I’ve added twins to the mix a little over a year ago, but they’re getting older and I need to reignite my passion.
So, here we are! Thank you readers for coming on this journey with me. I promise to be real, funny, and hopefully you find me entertaining. I think I am. ?
Just so you have an idea of what I plan to do with this blog my first month will have three posts of me talking to you and telling you some more things about me and my book, then I plan to post some short stories. Some of these will be new or I might try to tack down some of the short stories mentioned in this post. I know that my ant story is gone. ☹ But I have the other ones that I mentioned (I think) and they will all be updated and revised. Don’t need to subject you to my juvenile writing. ?
ANYway, I will post again shortly probably with a short story. Until next time!!!