The Journey Begins

Welcome! My name is Corinne Johnson and this blog is dedicated to young writers who are working their way towards being an author. I myself hope to become an author one day when I get older. Right now I am trying to write a fantasy book that will (hopefully!) one day become a series.

More on that later.

Right now, I want to give you some background.

The Big Idea

My parents, Stacy and Stephen Johnson, are the owners of Sourdough Cuppa Joe, a local coffee shop in Hixson, Tennessee, and they just recently started a blog. I had been reading their blog posts as they came out when one day my dad said, “You know, you’d be a good blogger, Corinne.” This comment took me COMPLETELY by surprise, so I just said, “Huh. Maybe.”

For the next few days, the idea kept coming up in my mind. Finally, I thought, “Why not?” So then, I started thinking about a topic. I considered a few things such as art, writing, and bullet journaling.  I figured that art might be hard to blog about, and I wasn’t sure how long I could blog about bullet journaling, since I just recently started that.

That left me one choice: writing.

My Background as a Writer

I guess I first started writing in seventh grade. I had been reading some books by my favorite author, Nancy Rue. I was inspired and wanted to write books of my own.

I was particularly interested in writing about daily life, since I had been reading the Lily Series. I began a story about a girl my age, and her sister who was being bullied in school.

I never got very far, and moved on to a different story.  That was when I was obsessed with mermaids, and I started to write a diary about a girl who turned into a mermaid whenever she touched water.

Then, one day in my eighth grade science class, while I was daydreaming, an idea struck me. I think it was inspired by the other series I had been reading, Keeper of the Lost Cities by Shannon Messenger.

My grand idea was: a young girl falls into another world, which turns out to be the world she really belongs in. It wasn’t much, but I thought it was brilliant.

I still think it is…with a few more details, of course.

So, here I am, ninth grade, still working on it. As I mentioned before, I hope it will become a series one day.

Doubts

Just because I thought it was a brilliant idea doesn’t mean I didn’t have doubts. I still HAVE doubts.

Sometimes I wonder if I actually will be a writer in the future. I also wonder if I’ll ever be able to actually make a living off of the books I write.

Will they be good enough? I hope so.

Just a few days ago, I was thinking. I thought, Hmmm…am I sure this is a good idea? I’m an introvert, and usually introverts don’t just wake up one day and decide to start a blog.

Well, I guess I’m not so much of an introvert as I thought.

The Decisions

Over the past few days, I have made several decisions. Some pertained to this blog, and some to my book.

First, I decided that yes, I was going to write a blog about my journey as a young writer. That meant it was time to start thinking about a name. I am not experienced at being a blogger AT ALL, so my mom and dad helped a lot.

Second, I decided on a name…..drum roll please! The HeartWord Way! My dad thought of it (thanks, Dad :)), and I knew it was perfect.

Third, I decided that I wasn’t going to let doubts push me away from using my talent of writing. I hope that if you have any doubts about your amazing gifts, you will push them away and don’t let them affect your work.

Farewell

This is the part where I bid you adieu, until the next post. I hope you enjoyed reading my first post, and please feel free to comment! Have a great day! 🙂