My first published essay...

So today, just another day in March, I was published in a literary journal....

I can't help but pause after writing that.  I've wanted to be a writer for so long-- since I was a little girl, in fact-- that the possibility of it actually happening became distant like a dream-- unattainable, but nice to think about.  I wrote my first novel when I was twelve on lined notebook paper until my hand cramped and the blue ballpoint ink ran out after 3 solid days and I had filled a mere 70 (front and back) pages.

I wrote all through high school and college; hardly ever submitting my work for outside consideration but I was, in those years, constantly writing. I wrote about everything I could possibly write about: the way my dorm room was (mostly) white; the way Reno was dirty and bitter cold at dawn; the way I had no idea what to write about.

It wasn't until I started running that the words and images began to come; that there was a reason why I was writing. I had experiences to convey-- and suddenly, in my life, there was MEANING.

It took a long time-- six years, really-- since I took my first step to train for a marathon to today when I have finally-- really-- published a work about a part of that incredible journey.

Here it is: a work which outlines the outstanding history of women in sports, set to the cadence of a 20-mile run. For once, the mind and body in motion and it only took me 31 years to do it: http://thebarnstormer.com/emblem/