Where to begin?

My aspirations have changed greatly since I was a kid. I've always loved children, even when I was little. Kids just seemed to gravitate toward me. I've always known that one day, I want to have a family of my own. But as far as career stuff, that has changed significantly.

When I was a kid, I thought I wanted to grow up and be a pediatrician, so I could work with children and help them feel better and all that. I was under that expectation up until sophomore year of high school when I had to dissect a cat in anatomy class and realized I would have to do the same to a cadaver in medical school. It may seem stupid, but that kind of made me realize that maybe the medical field isn't the place for someone so squeamish.

Backtracking slightly, I've always loved to write. My third grade teacher told my mom once about how detailed my stories were for class assignments compared to other kids my age. My teacher was convinced she'd be reading my books someday. Middle school rolls along and I fall in love with the Harry Potter books and a campy TV show called Big Wolf on Campus, and I decide I want to write my own stories into their worlds (i.e. fanfiction). High school was probably the "high point" of my fanfiction days. Go ahead and laugh if you must, but writing stories in preexisting worlds, getting into characters' heads, and putting them into new situations was fun for me. Especially once I discovered The Lord of the Rings. Just ask my lunch table friends and they will tell you (oh the epic tales and random adventures I wove for them, starring all of us, in Middle Earth). My best friend would read them aloud at the table, sometimes breaking down into laughter as she read certain parts. They were highly entertained, which made me want to write more (especially to get those reactions where they would laugh so hard that nearby tables would give us weird looks). Some moments in those stories are embarrassing to look back on for various reasons, but they were a part of me, and a part of our daily life.

After high school, something changed. I still wrote some stories here and there during college for various shows or books I liked, but it wasn't to the degree I had done previously. I took a fiction writing course sophomore year in college, where for the first time I really tried to create stories of my own. There was even one I put extensive effort into that my professor thought could turn into something like a young adult adventure novella. But like many of my stories, I never finished it. Sometimes I wonder, what if those characters were real, all the ones from my different unfinished stories, and they were just sitting there together in some stasis, waiting for me to finish their stories and fulfill their purpose? But I digress...

Something changed, and I couldn't tell you what if I tried. Call it the distractions of life, all the different responsibilities that pile up exponentially as you get older. Somehow inspiration has been lacking. I've discovered that I am very good as proofreading and editing, getting into the nitty-gritty details and catching things nobody else has caught. I enjoy doing that. But sometimes I just want to create, not correct. Thing is, how do you create when you don't know where to start?

To be honest, I can't say what exactly this blog will encompass--it could be anything. That's part of the reason I named this blog what I did. It's from a section of a poem found in The Lord of the Rings, and it resonates with me:

Still round the corner there may wait
A new road or a secret gate,
And though we pass them by today,
Tomorrow we may come this way
And take the hidden paths that run
Towards the Moon or to the Sun.

I can't really explain why, but something in this poem pulls at me, draws me in, encourages me. Maybe as this blog progresses, I will discover what that is.

My intention is to write intentionally. I have a problem with procrastination, lack of motivation, and inaction, and it affects various aspects of my life. I want that to change, with God's help. I know he answers prayer, and I pray he can change this heart of mine to be an effective human being, to contribute to the lives of others for his glory. I'm still working out what that looks like, but I trust that God will help me find it.