Sunrise Forum

Assignment # 1:

Hi all. I am Joanna, and I have just celebrated my fourth birthday here on WDC. I live on my own with my 9-month puppy Byron in a small town in the south east of England.

If you had asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up I would have replied “an author”. The wish has never left me, although inevitably I trained as a town planner and urban designer, and spent many years working in the profession. Writing became something that I did in my spare time when I was a student, and was always my reward for having worked through the text books. I no longer work, and since discovering WDC, spend much of my time online, reading and reviewing the work of others, as well trying to produce my own.

My writing goal has always to write a novel, not just any novel however, it has to be a novel worthy of literary criticism. Quite an ambition.

More than anything, I hope to improve the quality of my writing. See you around!!

Discussion Topic # 1:

Do you keep a journal? A diary? A diary is writing for the self, a journal is for everyone and/or publication.
If you wish, spend a paragraph on blogging. Do you have a blog? How would you classify a blog?

As a child I believed that a diary was something our ancestors kept. It was not something that you did in everyday life, but a practice of the past. (To me, the Bronte’s or Robert Louis Stephenson were characters I thought would have kept a diary) It always struck me as a romantic thing to do, and I yearned to discover a secret diary full of voluminous secrets!

I tried writing a diary as a teenager, but discovery that my mother had read it brought a quick end to my activity, and I didn’t start another until work demanded that I kept one. This diary was filled with times and dates of meetings and the like, but, residing on the top of my desk, contained nothing of a personal nature.

Nowadays I blog here on WDC.






I guess I approach my blog in much the same way as I would a diary: it has served as a place in which to record events that have happened in my life, although it is true that knowing that it may be read by others tends to mean that I try to write it in more entertaining fashion. Amusing incidents are written down; I use the blog as a soapbox in which to vent my feelings; comment on the weather (a typically British thing to do); offer support to others; get support from others; and hopefully raise a smile or two. More than that though, my blog is a tool that enables me to reach others; to share; to empathise; and to have fun.