Welcome to My Writing World
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I’m editing and updating my first post on this blog to be more of a true welcome to all who stop by to visit. I hope to get back to every post before I get too far along. I want to add images, double-check for grammar, and do a quick readability check. I would love for every post to be five-star perfect, but I know that’s not reality. My most difficult issue is probably with the use of passive verbs, but when talking about past events, it’s a bit difficult to do otherwise.
So, what is the purpose of this blog? I’m using it as a place to make myself write more things to be read by others. I write a lot, but it’s mostly in the form of prayer journals or other journals, though I have had requests to publish my prayer journals because I speak to God as if He is the Best Friend I have ever had–because He is. What little I’ve shared from the journals has brought great encouragement to others, and being an encouragement is one of my greatest desires..
The first post I made here was probably a year after I actually created the blog, and it was just one little paragraph and a link on June 7th, 2009. I had tried to post before that, but each time I would run into a struggle in getting it to do as I wanted, I would quit for a long time before trying again. That’s an old bad habit wrapped around a fear of failure that I consistently work to free myself from. That said, daily struggles with recovery from a neck injury (and two surgeries), from the pain of fibromyalgia, and from PTSD related to many abuses in this life, kept me from updating the blog again until May of 2012–almost three years.
I added another space of nearly six months without posting until I shared my thoughts about the hero worship I saw the world offering Obama, and I compared it to the elevated worship ignorant Christians offered the apostate preacher Todd Bentley. Find that post on November 6th 2012 called “When I Said I Knew It.”
Just under a month later (a record considering how much space I had been leaving between posts), I shared about my purchase of materials from “Pro Blogger” and my hopes that they could help me get more done. I’m certain they would help if I would apply them, but I’m far more interested in being available for others who say they need my assistance than in taking the time to learn something new and how to apply it.
In early 2013, I thought I would become consistent with posting a daily thought on the book of Proverbs and the thirty-one readings that correspond to the 31 days in many months. I got through two of them before whatever I allowed to distract me stopped me in my tracks, and I went another almost 4 months before posting again. That post on April 21st, 2013 called “So Many Laws” is about a lawful heart versus a lawless heart and how lawlessness actually creates the need for more laws.
Finally, on September 28th, 2013, I began writing a daily post with my commentary on portions of The Torah (the first five books of The Bible). For once, I had focus, and I posted regularly for over an entire year. I learned that having a focus makes a lot of difference, and the lack of posts after those Torah studies prove my point. Of course, I also lost my mom to cancer just a few months after I finished the Torah commentary, so that changed a lot in my life.
In another course I joined called ”Intentional Blogger,” the first lesson asks writers to know who they are writing to and what they hope to accomplish. It asked if I wanted to instruct, inspire, or just what. I know I love to teach, and I love to encourage and inspire (even with simple kaleidoscopic designs), so trying to distill that into one or the other wasn’t something I could figure out.
Now, it’s 2026, and I’m back to blogging with a desire to do so daily. Someone once told me that was too often, and I ended up quitting almost completely. I now know that I do better with regular patterns, and daily output is easier due me to do without trying to remember what days to blog and what days to skip. I do the same with my Spanish learning (I’m up to 1296 days there), Lumosity for brain health (1025 days), and Bible study that’s now up to 2180 days in the YouVersion app. So apps and patterns both help me.
I hope readers enjoy my commentary as I share my love for God, His Word, and His great creation, mercy, and love for me. In the meantime, consider this your invitation to read, comment, and vote on my blog content; add a like or rating if you can, and take a gander at some of my other blog-type projects…
- My first blogging attempt (in 2006) at Yahoo 360 with kaleidoscope designs (transferred here at the 360 closure)
- My next blogging attempt (at Blogspot.com) for a book project I hope still bears fruit one day
- My accumulation of articles at Scribd
- My profile page at Flickr, and most photos have abundant descriptions, so a lot like a photo blog
- My creativity and design blog for kaleidoscope images here on WordPress (one day to have at least weekly posts)
- My main website at crystal-writer.com where I hope to streamline my entire web presence.
And with that, may I introduce you to my first post on this blog…
My first post here will actually be a test on posting a PDF with line numbers so members of Louisville Christian Writers can post editing comments a little more easily. I had a bit of a hard time getting the PDF into my blog where people can read it as part of the blog. But, with perseverance, I finally got it. Just click the link below.
My Latest Flickr Photos
Crystal Writes A Blog 