In June of 2017, a little blog was born.  The intention was to share with readers what happens in the daily life of a teacher, sharing interactions with students and others, hopefully letting other educators know that I understood what they were going through and perhaps enlightening those outside of education as to what was happening in the contemporary classroom.  Nearly three years and a half a million words later, the stories have expanded, perhaps become a bit more personal, but still revolves, for the most part, around educating the whole child, specifically as it pertains to music.

People have asked what inspired me to begin writing in the first place.  Truth be told, if I hadn’t become a music teacher, I had seriously considered becoming an English teacher as I have always loved things like grammar, spelling and yes, diagraming sentences.  The experience I had in high school band changed my direction to music, but I’ve always had this love for books and words.  Words are powerful and I have found that by sharing my thoughts through the written word, I have on occasion been able to touch people, encouraging and inspiring, making them laugh and cry.  Like music, writing is an art form which can touch the heart, bringing people together.

I was reading some stats about blogging the other day, and found that most bloggers are between the ages of 25-44.  So I’m a little late to the game and certainly in the minority for my age, which is kind of a shame.  I know so many people with great age and wisdom who have marvelous stories to tell.  The kinds of stories full of hope in difficult situations, the kind that could encourage our younger counterparts to not be afraid but be strong and look forward to what can and will be, especially in light of what we’re experiencing now.

I also found out that based on current stats, my blogs are too short.  Despite the fact that I’ve written nearly a half million words, each blog averages only 740.  The current average blog number is twice that.  Would someone actually sit and read 1400 words in a sitting, specifically reading something that I have written?  I guess we’ll have to wait and see, especially as I get used to the idea of writing more words at a time.  I can remember being asked to write 500 word essays in school and thinking that was SO LONG.  Now I can pretty well pop out 500 words without thinking and have it within a formula I learned long ago.  So I need a challenge, and I received that challenge a couple of weeks ago.

I began meeting with a friend who has specific expertise in studying peoples’ strengths and I’m so excited because I always love learning something new. During our first meeting, she issued a challenge.  I tend to write how to’s or things I want people to think about in my blogs, pretty clinical stuff, so my challenge is to begin using all of the senses in my writings.  I feel like I tend to live in my head most of the time and I just spew those thoughts out in these blogs, but I don’t always share how I feel, or how I live these experiences through all of my senses.  That to me would be too vulnerable, as I tend to laugh and cry as I write these anyway.  I don’t write something unless it touches me,  but I tend to leave out the raw edges that started the thoughts to begin with.  After all, who wants to hear all of the gory details?

For those of us who choose to write, we tend to forget that there are always others who identify with what we’re writing about.  Although we write alone, we’re NOT alone.  In my relatively short time of writing, according to WordPress, I have had a total of 12,311 views by by 8457 visitors from 41 countries on 6 continents.  That’s not including readers on social media.  It takes a huge global community and makes it so much smaller, where we find we have so much more in common than not. This isn’t about me, it’s about all of us.  What we say matters to someone and words are powerful.  You never know when your words might make a difference in someone elses life.

So, now to take the challenge and begin elevating my writing.  We’ll see where this goes as I begin my fourth summer of writing.  Perhaps this can be a challenge to my friends out there who have thought about writing to begin their journey as well.  It’s scary as I have no idea how readers will react, and I’m always concerned with how I’m perceived, afraid to lose friends, afraid to hurt feelings or make someone angry by expressing something I really believe in.  Can I write in such a way that it is thought provoking and makes a difference?  I don’t want to be here another 20 years, look back and say I wish I had made a difference.  Here’s to the next half million words and may that make that difference I’m hoping for.