Having a new, first-time blog is the 21^st century equivalent to sitting down with an empty sheet of paper and a pen, or a blank page in a typewriter. What to write? 

This blog was launched as a result of the IPFW course Research Methods for Professional Writers, so my first post will be an homage to the short assignment that got the proverbial ball rolling: "When did creative writing begin in your life?" And my response was...

One of my early literary offerings, at age eight:

FROSTY THE SNOWFLAKE

Once upon a time, I came from a sky. I blew and blew until I almost blew into a church. Wow that was a close one! Then I started to fall. “Oo now I’m falling again! Wow! A church steeple with a cross on top!” It’s pointed, o know! I better turn, o know, I forgot. I can’t turn! O help, help help. O thank you wind! I have had a scary day, I better go down and stick to the ground. Good-by.

I still have this because, like my father, I loathe to discard anything sentimental, which is just about everything. Items that sprang from my creative self are especially difficult to part with, which explains the walrus head of yarn glued to cardboard that is probably still lurking in a drawer somewhere. 

Drawing, painting, crafts, ceramics, calligraphy, jewelry making, and other art projects have come and gone through the years. But always there was, and still is, writing. Diaries, journals, notebooks, poems, devotions, stories, essays, interviews, research papers, letters…a lifetime supply of words scattered across the pages of my life.

My creative writing began with, or probably even before, that first snowflake fell.

An aside: I speculate that the use of "O" instead of "Oh" was directly related to the fact that I was frequently in The Lutheran Hymnal (TLH) at age 8.