10 Minutes a Day of Writing

I love writing. I always have, ever since I was a little kid, writing Christmas plays to be performed by my family members. Sometimes I "acted" in them as well, but often I just did the writing and directing. I was probably about 6 or 7 years old when I started this tradition (which has long since ended.) I used to write my own stories about another world, called "Archenland." Never mind that my favorite books were C.S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia, which included a neighboring country called Archland. I never published those stories, so I think I'm safe from lawsuits. I chose Advanced Composition as an elective my senior year of high school, and I was one of the only people excited about College Writing class my freshman year of college. I then decided I wanted to get a minor in Creative Writing, and signed up for a class with Bethel professor Mary Ellen Ashcroft. Unfortunately, Mono took over & eliminated a semester of school for me, so I had to settle for the double-major of Social Studies Secondary Ed/History & minor of Philosophy, losing the Coaching Minor & Creative Writing minor I wanted to add to my original goal of a Triple Major. I think I'm tired just thinking about all that

But I still love writing. And yes, I know sentences don't begin with "but" or "and." This is my blog though, not a term paper, so I'll write the same way my thoughts go, rather than following what the English books say is the proper way to form a sentence. I already took my ACTs & scored extemely high on the two sections about English & writing, so I have nothing further to prove. Now I can just write for me.

About 2 1/2 years ago, I got a concussion, giving me between 6 & 10 concussions, by my best attempt at a count, not to mention a few hundred sub-concussive head hits on the metal bar from my lofted bed my sophomore year of college. This concussion was different than the rest though. This messed up my brain cognitively, and while there have been improvements, it's still messed up. I used to read a book a day while on vacation. Now I read a book total in 2 weeks of vacation. I used to read 1-5 books a month at home. Now I have read 2 books in the past year. Writing is much more difficult as well. It takes a lot out of me to write simple things like this, which used to happen with ease. I have suddenly developed new spelling issues, and find myself writing the wrong versions of "you're" & "your" or writing a word that is similar to what I meant to write, yet isn't at all the correct word (taught instead of thought is one example). I know what is correct if I proofread it, but the wires are somehow messed up inside my brain now. Yet, I still love to write. The writing perfectionist in me has kept me from creating many blot posts, because I never feel like they are good enough. I'm going to overcome that now.

I am going to do my best to write 10 minutes a day for this blog, whether or not anyone else reads it. There are some days when my still healing brain won't allow that, but on most days, if I properly ration my cognitive endeavors, I should be able to write for 10 minutes. Who knows what I'll write about, and if it will be any good, but I want to do it, even if just to remind myself that I still enjoy writing, and that someday, when my brain is all healed, I want to make sure I write as much and as often as possible.

Today surpassed 10 minutes, but I will sleep soon to let my head gets some rest. My brain works much better when I don't have to analyze things or figure things out. Just spitting out words like this is much easier than even answering a simple question about how my head is going these days. However, I didn't say much of anything in this post, but the point is that I wrote something, and that means at this moment, no matter how many things I feel like I've failed to accomplish since the brain injury, I have successfully achieved one goal today, and that means more to me than I could ever express with written words.