The Beginning

Here goes nothing.

Way back in the "olden days" of myspace, I used to blog all the time. Then, facebook came and swept me off my feet, and constant status updates took the place of sitting down and writing my thoughts out. Now, the shine has worn off, and I'm barely doing any status updates, much to the dismay of certain people I know. That leads me to this.

My shiny new blog.

Now, I am infamous for starting things and never finishing them. My problem in that department is epic. But maybe, just maybe, I will keep updating this blog that I always think about writing, and talk about writing, and never actually write. Kind of like all the books I haven't published yet that I know I will eventually publish, just as soon as I write them. My writer's group is a step in the right direction for that, but even though I go to writer's group, I still find that I don't write nearly enough for my own liking. I'm hoping this will be one more incentive to sit down and write regularly.

I called it Channeling Mr. Whitman because I am inspired regularly by his poetry. I used to hate poetry. And I mean HATE. I didn't think I understood it, didn't think it had much value, and mostly thought I couldn't write it. I was too inhibited and shy. Too worried about sucking when I put pencil to paper to try and come up with something. Teaching middle schoolers to spill their guts without being self conscious about it has certainly helped me get over that. Come to find out, I actually love poetry, and I love writing it, and sometimes, I'm actually good at it. So, for now, my blog will be called this because he inspires me, and his prolific thoughts on life and love and human existence always spark me to do more, be better, and most importantly, to think.

I stink at titles as a general rule, so I'm sure I'll get discouraged with this one and move onto another shortly. I'm a work in progress.

To close out my first entry, here's one of my favorites from Mr. Whitman himself:

When I heard the learn’d astronomer;
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me;
When I was shown the charts and the diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them;
When I, sitting, heard the astronomer, where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,
How soon, unaccountable, I became tired and sick;
Till rising and gliding out, I wander’d off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.

Until next time...