About the author

“Blog”, blog, BLOG.

What a foul sounding term for an activity that so many of us have begun doing out of a need to express ourselves, a desire to search our souls, to make sense out of our own thoughts, to discuss the world we all live in or just to simply talk to whoever wishes to listen. Who invented a word like “blog” for what has become a rather wonderful way for a multitude of voices to be heard the world over?

Well, well, well would you look at that, I’ve begun my foray into this environment on a note of cynicism. Let’s put a halt to that right now…changing the channel.

After spending the previous 3 years immersed in and
writing from a scientific perspective…”just the facts ma’am”, I
feel my abilities to just write for writing’s sake has faltered, my
imagination and creativity has gone astray, faded away into mental
obscurity. It was pushed back into the recesses as I maintained a
research objectivity, a difficult task for someone who prided
themselves on creative storytelling and encouraged by university
professors to pursue fiction writing as a career. If not quite
apparent as yet, I went in other directions. With academic work in
anthropology and public health  I explored work with county
government writing emergency response plans and later moved into
environmental health. Feeling a bit hemmed in with the scope of those
areas I moved on to earn my Master’s in environmental science, a
broad field which allowed me to branch out into marine mammal
research, climate change, marine fisheries and to meet and work with
insightful groups of Alaska Native peoples and Alaskan fishers who
made significant contributions to the study which was eventually
published. All in all, a rewarding experience resulting in a wealth
of acquired knowledge which I look forward to applying throughout my
professional life.

In the meantime, here I find myself reaching back to my early college
days when my creativity and my love of writing for writing’s sake was
productive, bursting with vitality. Story ideas churned constantly so
much so that I was lost without a notepad, scratch paper or a stray
napkin to jot them all down. Luckily, I did have the sense any
ascended beings gave the proverbial mule and held onto all those
scribblings in a file folder that has followed me throughout my
travels. They were fingered through from time to time over the years,
as I noncommittally contemplated diving back into them. But not until
now when a renewed desire set in and a new sense of discipline formed
to sit down and each day coalesced together bringing me to this point.
So I began wandering the internet pondering the possibilities of publishing
some of my work. Advice permeated from a multitude of sources each with
their own unique perspective but one method carried throughout…”start a blog”.

Now this may present a bit of a contradiction, “writing
for writing’s sake” with an aspiration to publish that writing. To
that I say, “Nah.” They compliment one another. What potential
writer doesn’t want someone to read their work? To hear others’
thoughts, others’ feedback, and dare I say,  to search out their
approval. Shallow? Maybe…sure a little but writers put their
creations out there to inform, to inspire, to offer an escape for the
reader, to offer up questions for the inquisitive and to hopefully
bring about a bounty of enjoyment for any who encounter their mental
meanderings. That’s the reward, the approval of one’s efforts,
knowing you have created something that makes someone sit back and
think or simply to have someone say to you, “I just couldn’t put it
down”. Job well done!  

So here I am dusting off my creative, mental agility
from years of neglect, reshaping its dulled edge with shiny,
newfangled life experiences to see what can be made of it. As a
college friend used to expound, “The mind is the only tool that
sharpens with use”.  I’m looking forward to the experience and I
hope you’ll find some enjoyment along the way.