By Nicole Alicia

Writing for me has always been easy. Ask me if it has always come “naturally” and the answer is “Yes”. Is it a talent? Maybe. But at this age I know it’s a gift. Even at a young age, maybe as early as 1st grade, so about 5 or 6 years old I had a Diary. You know the kind, where it had one of those small little keys to open it. Although I knew nobody cared and I had no siblings I kept it under my mattress.

In School, Language Arts and English was always my favorite. I loved when the teacher would ask at the beginning of the school year to  write a short paragraph about what you did this Summer. Fast forward to Junior year in College though when I began writing poetry literally because I used to go these spoken word events on campus and in Kansas City when I was home. And I had started journaling to try and record some of my experiences and feelings to remember later on after I graduated.

It was then I thought I would change majors, because perhaps I would be a good journalist.

So I took a Journalism class as an elective and did fairly well. But was upset when I discovered one of the professors that was over the department was seemed a bit harsh and unhelpful when I worked super hard on an article assignment. I was in a round about way told I didn’t have what it took. I could have tried harder and continued on with a different class, but there were too many factors. One being, I was too far into my major which was Marketing and the other being time. It would have taken more money to change majors at that point and spend nearly another year or so. So that kind of deaded those dreams for the time being.

But in 2008, I discovered another outlet and was encouraged by my boyfriend (now husband) to continue writing this short story I had shared with him that was loosely based on some of my college experiences and others. I didn’t want to write a memoir of sorts, but decided to create a fictional character around said experiences (and NO this was not a replay of The Best Man and what happened LOL). So I started writing in a notebook, working on that in the evenings after I got off work. Also at the time Blogging had become fairly popular and I thought why not start sharing some other thoughts on various topics online.

I can’t even remember what my first blog name was but it was definitely on Blogger. At the time I was still interested in Journalism and closely followed and admired a local Journalist who worked for the newspaper where I lived, The Kansas City Star and wrote a weekly column on nightlife. Her name is Ms. Jenee’ Osterheldt and she was then and still is awesome. I used her as a muse of sorts. I loved her writing style and topics.

Since at the time I was around 24-ish and was out a lot with my friends or boyfriend nearly every weekend, I thought why not do the same with different clubs, bars, movies and events I went to. I did this for quite some time, maybe a year or so. I also was able to interview some very close associates who are very well known now, one I went to school with Ms. DJ Diamond Diva, DJ Q, Rapper Chief Wakil and Craig Smith who have all gone on to do awesome things in their career. I’m not sure at what point I discovered maybe I wasn’t that into Journalism and more into Creative Writing and Content Creation, but for the greater part that has been my focus for about the last 10 or so years.

First of all I can be super introverted.

In the past I did write from some other blogs, and attempted pitching articles to other publications which was fun and interesting to say the least, and I may venture to do that again in the near future.

 Also along the years, I had some exciting events occur like planning a wedding, getting married, changing jobs, finding jobs, moving, miscarriages, a kidney transplant, dialysis and becoming a mom and being a foster mom have all played into lack of consistency. Oh and those things I listed were not in order by any means. I mean life happens, right? Oh and I left out actually finishing and self-publishing my first book in 2017. So much has happened and I still am fighting for my writing time and pursuing my passion all these years later. Although the consistency has not been there at times, I feel fortunate to be able to still share my gift. The journey still continues here at 40 years old, and I pray daily the Lord blesses me with more time and the ability to share more stories over the years to come. Lord know I have a lot of them!