It's My 300th Anniversary at Associated Content

It's my 300^th anniversary today. Really, you ask?! Yes, indeed, this is my 300^th article for Associated Content. Even I am slightly impressed by that number and I don't impress easily.

This late blooming, baby boomer author just returned to writing after a 35 year hiatus that was supposed to only last about 10 years. The original plan went astray as so many women can attest to. Why so long and what was I doing during those 35 years where my writing consisted of witty family Christmas newsletters, an occasional poem penned during emotional stress, and lots of childrens stories told off the cuff and rarely written down. Well, I guess you could count the public relations news releases I did for work, the three plays that I wrote for church, and Aunt Nellie's funeral eulogy.

During those 35 years I raised five high achieving, independently functioning adults and ran two successful businesses to put food in the mouths of those children, clothes on their back and education in their brains. Writing remained a wistful dream, something that I was going to return to when I had the time. My creative spirit bloomed in other areas more practical, cooking, gardening, theatre with the kids, and home art pursuits. Each year that passed I made feeble stabs at writing again. My journals are full of those yearly attempts, a penciled outline for a novel, a short story waiting for editing and pages where I scrawled out ideas for magazine articles that I never submitted.

I wrote a column in my career related journal for a couple of years. I wrote some theatrical plays for my theatre group and got rave reviews from all of them, but I never followed through and submitted them. When blogging became the rage, I entered the blogosphere and only made three posts before getting side-tracked by the marriage of one child and the heart-breaking divorce of another. Being a mother, wife and activity therapist for the elderly stole my energy but I willingly acquiesced to the crime, allowing so many other priorities to take away my youthful dream.

In December of 2008 on New Year's Eve, I was cozily snuggled on the couch under my blankie and surfing the net while the guys were watching a bowl game and I stumbled across an AC article on something. As I read the article, I checked out the site and read the About Us page. Hmm...write for us on what you want to write about....hmmm. I signed up that instant, immediately. Little did I know that I had shaped the course of my life this past year of 2009.

Of course, I signed up, wrote one article published in 2009 and promptly got busy with 2009. My youngest daughter was preparing to leave for college in the fall. I was going through a job change and trying to decide future direction for work and college payments and we were considering moving to a smaller house and ..and..and.. Some of you know the story, been there, haven't you? On a late January day, the house was quiet and I remembered the AC site. I clicked on my profile page and decided to cruise around the site and read some other articles and 3 hours later I had picked some favorites and read some good stuff and some that was not so good. But I was intrigued by the idea that my very first article on New Year's Eve parties had made 42 cents. Yeah, pennies, 42 of them.

I wrote another article on how to start a homeschool co-op and it received 500 page views. Wow. And then I wrote some more articles and submitted them and I began to figure out how to work the site, just like everyone of you have done or will do. In February, a cold, slow non gardening month, I was able to write 35 articles, averaging a little over one a day. I could see a small stream of income..enough for one lunch a month out somewhere nice with friends. Hey, it's food and I was getting paid to write again. It had been 35 years since I had tried to get paid to write.

Now 9 months after that initial sign up and 8 months after I really committed to writing each day at AC, I have added two other writing jobs at other sites, am now making enough money to buy a decent winter coat and boots to match. I just designed business cards and am calling myself a writer. I'm working on a book of devotions on poetry. And I'm writing another play and have submitted one of the plays that I polished and wrote six years ago, to a contest. I am venturing into the world of the writer, with blessings from my husband, who says, go for it honey! I just joined a writer's group in Indianapolis and attended my first workshop.

My days are spent in my sunny yellow office in our new home. I can look out the window at my desk and see the green lawn stretching to the edge of the field and the woods beyond that and it beckons me to write fast and write hard. I feel as though the young woman of 22 who loved words and wanted to tell stories that she had created is still here. I'm looking out that window and I see the next 20 years as a time when I shall write my dreams. I shall sit each day and write.

There are good writers on AC and there are even some really great ones. I make no claim to be either, but I do know that this past 8 months has taught me that I can and should follow that life long dream to write because it just makes me happy. I am content in that knowledge and that ongoing effort. I am thankful to the many beginning friendships that are opening up here at AC, to the loving and kind support of people like CJ Mathis and Abby Greenhill, John Myers, Michael Segers, Linda Louise Johnson and so many others who have affirmed to me that I should write and they would read and hear me.

I appreciate their advice, their counsel and their kindness to this writer who is amazed and sometimes horrified when I read some of those 300 articles. Some of my reaction is wow, that was pretty good; and at other times, I shrink and hit the delete button and wish I had I learned the power of DO publishing sooner!

Thanks to all of you and to those whom I have offended with my strident passionate liberal voice, I am working on toning that down. Hey, I've only been at this for 8 months. By the time I publish my 1000^th article, I bet I have it figured out.

No awards for this writer, I always miss the deadlines, but I am awarding myself today on this anniversary with lunch out with my husband on my Slovenly Saturday Fun Day; and I'm aiming my sights at my new goal, 100,000 pages views by the end of the year. Can I make it?