Finding Nemo

The day that I started journaling on Christianforums.com (CF) I had no idea that I would become a big fish in a small pond. It was 2004 and I hadn’t even heard of the term “blogging.” I’d just found a new way to chronicle my thoughts about life as it unfolded around me and as luck would have it… I finally had an audience. Since my life read like a cross between a train wreck and a deer caught in the headlights… it’s no wonder that people tuned into my journal (it was still called a journal back then) as if it were a telanovela. Drama. People liked to tune in to read about the drama du jour. People also interacted with me by way of comments on my journal or private messages sent to me. It was all rather heady stuff and I enjoyed the notoriety.

When I started asking God about my writing career/ministry… the only answer I got was that my book had already been written. Since C.S. Lewis I’m not, I had no idea what God meant until the people reading my blog (when it shifted from being a journal to a blog I’ll never know) said that I should turn my blog into a book. And that’s what I’ve spent the last four years doing. I even started attending the Hawaii Writers Conferences in pursuit of my dream. I took a lot of pride in attending the premiere writing conference in the country. So it was a great shock to find out a month ago that the “premiere” conference is now defunct. I had to dictionary.com “defunct” to make sure I was using it correctly. Evidently, I was: no longer in existence; dead; extinct. That would pretty much describe the conference. Gone after 17 years of helping other people realize their dreams of becoming authors. What about my turn??? So what happens to my dream of becoming an author now that this premiere door has been  slammed in my face?

My response? Just keep blogging. I’ve been blogging on this site for months now, but it had been a long while since I blogged on CF. LONG STORY. Telanovela worthy. The small pond that I’d been swimming in dried up. I tried to start another blog on Blogstream.com…. and again… telanovela worthy drama forced me to leave. One would think that with all this drama, I’d just give it up. But  I can’t. Writing is what I do. When I wake up I’m already thinking of what I’m going to write. Throughout the day as events happen to me I think about how I’m going to write about it. I jot blog titles and ideas on my hand and on busy days all the way up my arm. No matter how small the pond is… I’m going to swim in it because that’s what fish do.

So…I’m here on wordpress. I have a few loyal readers and even fewer who leave comments (thanks Paul). I am a tiny fish in a pond so big I have no idea how deep it is. Sometimes it’s depressing to check the blog stats and see that nobody has visited my blog that day. I wonder why I even bother. Other days I tell myself that I’m not going to do it anymore… but then I always come back. If all I’m doing is blogging for applause then I really should pack it in. My blog is never going to be that popular. The folks at the Hawaii Writers Conference kept telling me that my blog needed to be huge so that it could be considered my “platform.” Evidently you need a platform in order to publish. But considering that that particular premiere whale went belly up… I think I’ll just keep doing what I do. If  God could build an arc — he can build a platform.

I blog  because I can. God’s gifted me with the ability to write and I’ve never found a better avenue in which to share my word. Do I miss the days when my blog was one of the most popular blogs on two separate websites? Hell yeah. I’d be lying if I said otherwise. But I blog because I want to talk about Jesus and what he’s done for me. A few posts back I put a picture of my cardboard testimony: mentally ill, addicted to porn, suicidal, isolated, alone, and afraid. The Adventures of Bipolar Girl is nothing if not a testimony to the goodness of God. My journey with Jesus is meandering at best and just plain weird at worst… but it’s my journey and I feel compelled to write. This morning I’m wondering if I’ll ever publish. Right now my chances seem rather bleak. I don’t know which way to go and like I said… little fish in huge ponds don’t get noticed. They get eaten. I’m going to close this post with something I haven’t done on this particular blogsite: a prayer.
Lord, I have been faithful to share my testimony about what I’ve seen you do. I will continue to share my story because in sharing my story I share yours. Please bring the people to my blog that need to read it and encourage them through it as they need to be encouraged. And if, along the way, you see fit so send a publisher or an agent my way… somebody who just might have stumbled upon my little corner of the pond. Well, let’s just say that’d be pretty cool too.

~Amen