Yes, It's True!

I'm a nerd. Gasp! Ground-breaking! Shocking! HA. I know that wasn't exactly surprising news— I mean, I've started a blog about words, for crying out loud— but I felt the confession needed to be made nonetheless.

So, what's the big deal? Why does GetLiterary exist? To answer that as simply as possible, here's a quote from the illustrious Albus Dumbledore: "Words are, in my not so humble opinion, our most inexhaustible source of magic, capable of both inflicting injury and remedying it."

That pretty much hits the nail on the head. There's something extraordinarily profound in the way words can affect us, and I've always been a fan of that. Whether you use them for entertainment, information, business, or any other purpose, it's safe to say words are everywhere. Why not play with them a little bit? See what you can do with them. Make people feel something. Help people learn something.

I'm not going to lie to you and say I'm an expert when it comes to writing (in fact, I'm far from it), but I know my way around a keyboard and I think I can offer some good advice. If not advice, hey, entertainment for when you're tired of scrolling through Facebook.

For those of you who are wondering exactly what makes me think I'm a good writer, well, here goes nothing. (Disclaimer: This is not meant to be braggy. It's just a heads-up to answer the question about why I think I'm a good writer.)

It all started in elementary school. I've always loved to read. My brothers and sisters mostly spent time watching TV or playing the computer, but I preferred to read. Goosebumps, to be exact. Shout out to you, R.L. Stine. The more I read, the more I found that the world in books was up to me. I could create a television show in my head that looked exactly the way I wanted to see it. I don't know about you, but I think that's pretty rad.

In middle school, I started to dabble in writing short stories myself. Most of them were awful, but there was the occasional gem. In fact, my eighth grade English teacher, Mrs. McClure, used to have me read some of my stories out loud to the class when I asked her for advice. That way, they could help me out, too. From there— hold on to your hat, because this is super impressive— I started taking the more advanced English classes in high school. Option III English (which is now weighted as an honors course. Yes, I'm still salty about that) my sophomore year, then AP English my junior and senior years.

I also took three years of the Shakespeare: Page to Stage class with the incredible Mrs. Sue Biondo-Hench. If you have any arguments against Willy Shakes being the most incredible wordsmith who ever lived, well, I'm sorry, but you're wrong. Studying and performing Shakespeare teaches you a lot about the way words work, and it was in my senior year that I decided that I wanted to double major in Theatre and English in college.

I got accepted into Elizabethtown College at the beginning of my senior year. I was stoked. When I graduated high school and got to college, people kind of noticed that I have a way with words. Specifically, my crazy First Year Seminar professor, Professor Benowitz, liked to rave about my writing. He made me a writing tutor for the Writing Wing of the college. As a freshman. I also took the Advanced Writing class, where I got some stellar grades. (Toot, toot. I'm pretty unashamedly tooting my own horn there. Sorry, not sorry.) My professor in that class, whose name I cannot seem to remember for the life of me, even published one of my papers on the Writing Wing website as an example of model writing.

Then, part of the way through my second semester of Freshman year, I found out my husband (then fiancé) and I were expecting our first little boy. Morning sickness hit me like a truck. Between that and my extreme anxiety and depression, I made the tough decision to leave Etown with the plan of going back to school after my little one was in kindergarten.

On the bright side, though, I then became a freelance writer through a platform called Upwork and professionally wrote for clients. It was pretty much all ghostwriting, but that's a plus regardless.

And now, here we are. I have another little boy, and when the kids allow me to do so, I spend my spare time working on my first novel that I'm going to publish under my own name as opposed to a client's pen name. (Keep an eye out for that; it'll be coming soon.)

As I look back over this post, I realize that all of that was a bit long-winded, but I got everything out that I wanted to say. If you're still here at the end of the post, you get a gold star! Now that the relatively boring introductory post is out of the way, get ready for lots more good stuff to come. GetLiterary will include posts about writing techniques, maybe a few blips of my own writing, book club style posts, and probably a lot of other random stuff that has to do with words. Buckle up! I'm really excited to play with words and share that love with anyone who's willing to enjoy it. Feel free to let me know if there's anything you'd like to see!

PS: The name GetLiterary is supposed to be a pun. Because, you know, puns are the best thing on the planet. Instead of just saying, "Get lit," I'm saying to get lit with words. HAHAHAHA... hahahaha... oh well, I thought it was clever.

#introduction #writinghistory #writing #words #magic #qualifactions