a new start

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dear friend,

*Audible sigh* It’s been a long time coming, y’all.

So, today, Wednesday, December 18, 2019, I FINALLY decided to just bite the bullet and get a domain through Squarespace. After a few years of debating, praying, thinking, researching and more, I came to my senses and just… did it! And you know what? I am SO excited to be here. It has been way too long since my last blog post.

Now, don’t get me wrong, it’s not like I haven’t been writing. I have; just in my private blog post idea journal. That only I can see. And only my family knows about it… and now y’all do too! Who knows, maybe I’ll make an entire post about my own blog post writing process — only time will tell! ‾\_(ツ)_/‾

Anyways, to kick off my first blog post, I figured I’d start off anew and tell you about my creative writing journey, and hopefully inspire myself to keep going (I kinda have an issue with starting things and then just leaving them to die because of the cursed writer’s block… oops. Send help, it’s a major problem sometimes lol) and maybe I’ll inspire some of y’all, too!

Side note: This post is going to be super chill, and super unconventional and outta the norm; please bear with me, as this is not going to be the usual way I write blog posts, haha!

Where it all began

So, let’s see… it all started when I was really, really young… let’s say sometime between Kindergarten - 1st grade. I remember my first journal as clear as day. In fact, I can see the entire scene right now, like not even in first-person, but as if I’m watching a movie of myself way back when. Trippy, I know.

We zoom in on a young Natalie, around 6-7 years old, sitting on her bed, hunched over a glittery, pink, Hello Kitty spiraled journal. She’s writing with intense fervor, as if her life depends on the words that she leaves on the paper, stains marking her hands in blue ink as her wrist glides seamlessly over the page.

Or… yanno, something like that. You get what I mean. This is one of the earliest memories of my writing journey that I have. And now you have it too! So that moves us to our next part of the story.

The teen years

I’m now thirteen and I’ve discovered this underground, underrated (at the time) website and app called Wattpad.

Ahh, good old Wattpad; a world full of dirty fan fiction, adult themes, and horrible grammar and spelling. What more could I have wanted?

(Disclaimer: I do not support any of the above things mentioned, especially bad grammar and spelling; can you say, “uncreative” ten times fast?)

I’d always been interested in kidnapping stories (RIP because I actually have no idea what my obsession with them was. Please forgive me lol), and so I took what VERY little I knew about them and created a story of my own: Taken it was called — (can we say uncreative ten times fast AGAIN?) and for some reason it got 15,000 reads! Someone inform me how because I legitimately do not even claim it as my own it is SO BAD y’all! Ugh, can we all agree that growing up with technology should not have been a thing?

Where I am now

Anywho, where were we? Oh right; flash forward to 2017-2018. I realized, after many, many drafted stories that never went anywhere in the wonderful world of Wattpad that I could start a blog instead! This way, I was able to control what I wanted to post, when I wanted to post, and I could even coordinate my minuscule photography skills/knowledge with my writing: what more could I want?? Nothing! So, I bit the bullet and just created a website using Wix (after getting what seemed like ten thousand ads for it on YouTube) and for awhile it was okay. However, I never really felt committed to it. For one, I used the free version (I was a broke high school student without a job — what more can I say?). And for another, I wasn’t as close to God as I made myself seem. I had all of the inspiration but it just wasn’t really going anywhere. And then, on one tragic day, one of my button links on my page broke and overlapped with another button. I tried E V E R Y T H I N G to fix it, but nothing, not one single thing, seemed to do a lick of difference. So, I gave up. I figured it was an issue with the coding mechanics, which I obviously don’t have a single clue about, so I quit, and resorted to writing all of my inspiring devotionals down in a journal.

It’s been over a YEAR y’all. I think I’m ready to come back.

With an entire JOURNAL’S worth of blog posts, and with Wix behind me and Squarespace’s promise of hassle-free blogging in front of me, I’m ready to take on this new challenge. I’m ready to learn this new site, to explore new depths within my writing and my relationship with Christ, and to share it all with you, my wonderful readers and supporters.

With the words of 2 Corinthians 5:17 encouraging me along, saying, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come,” (ESV) I am ready to make like a certain Disney princess and let the old go and let the new happen. The new is here and it is now. And with the Lord as my guide, I’m ready to write what He wants me to write and I’m so excited to be able to share it all with you, my wonderful, faithful readers and — dare I say it — my FRIENDS!

In all seriousness, thank you for reading! I hope you’ll stick around and link arms with me, that you’ll join me in the ups and downs of this life, one blog post at a time. Stay tuned for more posts just like this one!

much love & more,

XO,

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bias and how it affects our ability to share the Gospel (bias, pt 1)