joy of nine9

I am a story-teller who regaled family and friends for decades with the exploits of my nine kids and  the large menagerie of farm animals, pets and wild creatures which surrounded our small hobby farm. My kids, friends and even strangers came up to me for years and asked,

” When are you going to start writing?”

“God is calling you to write.”

Yet, two years ago, when I closeted myself in a room to sit down and write, I froze. I considered writing to be a solitary craft but looking at a blank screen or talking into thin air was a sterile exercise in futility for me. I could not translate the same creative energy that I experienced telling a story verbally to the keyboard. My intuitive, imaginative side stayed buried and my logical intellect wrote boring drivel.

Then I discovered blogs, blogging sites and blogging directories. I snapped to attention. Suddenly, I was thinking up a username, a title for a blog, looking at templates and design and layout. All these activities loosened up my creativity while I sat typing.

God used blogging to set my buried gift free.

It was like an invisible barrier slowly melted, allowing my imagination to bubble up in a stream of written words that felt just as exhilarating as my oral tradition. I was excited to start sharing written stories with other people, people who would read them, respond, comment and give me feed back on what I had written. Within weeks, I was no longer an island but part of a community of other writers who had the very same insecurities and problems as I did.

I am learning to trust the surge of words which rise up from deep in my spirit, in union with the Holy Spirit. I write with my inner spirit and my fingertips, not my mind. Memories, insights, examples and quotes seem to come together in my deepest self and the words flow faster than I can type. I am humbled and in awe as a whole new world  has opened up before me.

I blog at joy of nine9, melaniejeanjuneau.wordpress.com and at mother of nine9 http://themotherofnine9.wordpress.com/ The very existence of a joyful mother of nine children seems to confound people. My writing is humorous and heart warming; thoughtful and thought provoking with a strong current of spirituality running through it. Part of my call and  witness is to write the truth about children, family, marriage and the sacredness of life, especially a life lived in God. I am the administrator of Association of Catholic Women Bloggers, a columnist at Catholic Lane, Catholic Stand and Catholic Attachment Parenting Corner and CatholicMom