{"id":5370,"date":"2015-06-07T10:09:19","date_gmt":"2015-06-07T14:09:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/?p=5370"},"modified":"2015-06-07T10:09:19","modified_gmt":"2015-06-07T14:09:19","slug":"the-first-step-is-always-spontaneous","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/2015\/06\/the-first-step-is-always-spontaneous\/","title":{"rendered":"The First Step is Always Spontaneous"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>When I was 12, I came across a copy of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.goodreads.com\/book\/show\/1926575.Seasons_in_the_Sun\" target=\"_blank\">Seasons in the Sun <\/a>in my mom&#8217;s book collection. I leafed through the first couple of pages and found myself instantly intrigued. I asked her about it, and she told me that it wasn&#8217;t meant for kids. In fact the way she put it was, &#8220;Mijo, the things he writes about you won&#8217;t understand. You&#8217;re too young.&#8221; And she was right. I didn&#8217;t understand. Still, I read that book so much it fell apart after a year or so. It was during that time when I began to try my hand at writing. Before long, poetry became a quiet hobby that soon grew into a passion. It was a passion kept buried deep for many years. Now, 22 years later, I&#8217;ve come to the point of my life where it&#8217;s no longer a question of whether I am a writer or not, but rather a question of whether I&#8217;m ready to take a chance, for once.<\/p>\n<p>About 5 years ago, a former classmate of mine had her poetry published. I went to her book signing at the local library with every intention to congratulate her and ask her how she did it. As I recall, I shook her hand, fumbled out a congratulations, and then walked away. I spent the next couple of hours reading a book on how to get published. All I could think was, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=bu2hBrC7NEM\" target=\"_blank\">&#8220;That could have been me.&#8221; <\/a><\/p>\n<p>So here I am. About to take part in a 12 hour poetry marathon. I would have tried for the 24 hour marathon, but I think I&#8217;ll take it easy the first time around. Perhaps this will be that spontaneous first step into this world I&#8217;ve had such a love for, but never confessed? I&#8217;ll not lie and say, I am not the least bit nervous; cause I totally am. I am new to something like this. Up until now, I&#8217;ve left my poems to $0.99 journals from the dollar store, my notes on Facebook, and a blog I&#8217;ve not logged into for almost a year. Nervous as I may be, though, I plan to have as much fun with this as possible.<\/p>\n<p>Good luck to everyone!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When I was 12, I came across a copy of Seasons in the Sun in my mom&#8217;s book collection. I leafed through the first couple of pages and found myself instantly intrigued. I asked her about it, and she told me that it wasn&#8217;t meant&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":228,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5370","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-half-marathon-poem","category-introductions"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5370","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/228"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5370"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5370\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5398,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5370\/revisions\/5398"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5370"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5370"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5370"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}