Who I am

I'm Jenn. I knew I needed to write from the time I was 16 years old and might be the only person I know who never changed my major: English, emphasis in poetry and creative writing.

So, why the blog?  I struggle sharing my writing with people. I get shy and quite frankly, scared. This is definitely a problem for someone who wants to be published writer. A blog feels like an electronic journal to me, and less scary (even though it is very, very public).

In short, this is just a place for me to tell my stories with less discomfort. I'll post some poems here, and some written tangents and anecdotes.




Popular posts from this blog

The dark that lives inside.

Once again, Jimmy Blackwell and I worked on another shared writing prompt. He tackled seeing the light that lives in the dark (which you can read here ) - - and I took on when darkness hides inside the light. I've got to say that this was a tricky prompt for me and gave me more than a few shaky moments. It has honestly taken me waaaaay longer than the allotted two weeks to get this far. This is rough and raw, so be gentle...I am an optimistic person by nature and discussing darkness is tough for me. Makes me go to a place that is uncomfortable to some degree. Like that saying "hurt so good"? Something like that. It's not that I won't go there or don't want to go there - it's just a touch difficult. But good for me. So here it is: Together We looked so damned beautiful together. Friends wanted to be us. Around us at a minimum. Our picture perfectness was awful. Horrible. Intolerable at best. Our bright shiny smiles full of too many white teeth blinded th...
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The one where I need a suit of bubble wrap because the hits keep coming

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So, here we are five years post-diagnosis. It's been four full years of no medications, no surgeries, no scans; nothing but regular checkups. Now, I can only speak from my experience, but it seems like the high of hearing the words "no discernable masses" and "no cancer cells in your lymph nodes" doesn't last as long as the fear of waiting for the other shoe to drop.  Now, I cannot say that the other shoe has dropped, per se. But, it seems fair to say that someone definitely chucked a boot at my head.  Because chemotherapy and the removal of my ovaries put me into early menopause, I was at risk for osteoporosis. This is a thing that I knew, but really thought wouldn't be an issue. I am young, I eat healthy, I work out, I feel strong, etc. Clearly I haven't learned my lesson that sometimes you can do everything right and still have it turn out all wrong.  My oncologist ordered a bone density scan just to be sure and wouldn't you know it, here I am...
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When worlds collide. (No, not an actual armageddon...just using creative license.)

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Recently, I discovered that Mark Hall is a brilliant music composer and producer. He ever so graciously gave me permission to peruse some of his pieces and use them to jump start my writing flow. Here's the thing - - I love music of every kind. I played the clarinet for 8 years in the school concert band (Yes, I was a band nerd. Hard to believe, right?) and I can associate all of my favorite memories with particular songs. It's just how I'm built. I love listening to movie scores and putting myself in a "mood" and I take my daily play list at work very seriously. With that said, I had never thought to reverse the process and listen to a song first and THEN figure out the story to go with it. But that is exactly what Mark let me do. Thanks for that. (I'm not even being sarcastic. Seriously, thanks.) For reference, track #2 was the inspiration for this poem. I heard the first 30 seconds and knew precisely what was going on in that house. " This hous...
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