My name is Ruth, and to further introduce myself, I will (with hesitancy) say that I am a conflicted writer that has a history of taking common, everyday events, ideas, feelings, and words, and turning them into personal stumbling blocks.  Now that I’ve revealed that much, I feel this might be a good time to state why I am writing here in the first place.  I came across Wild Mind quite by accident and discovered it is valuable to me as a writing resource.  I am curious to learn more about blogs in general, since I’ve had little exposure to them, and I am intrigued specifically with Gloria’s blog concept as a whole.  For me, even the name Wild Mind is inspirational, full of exciting possibility; it resonates with me in a way that few things do, I can really identify with it because I am mystified with how the mind works, and consider my own mind to be quite chaotic and wild.  Add to that mix, my belief that writing is my passion, a component that is a principal building block in the architecture of “me”, and it is not surprising that Wild Mind feels like a familiar home to me, a place of comfort, an area where I might be a little more relaxed and let my guard down.
 
My life could be compared to a juggling act.  I juggle concepts, fears, questions, stresses, ideas, problems, thoughts, priorities, needs, goals, desires, experiences, writing, services, parenthood, livelihood, distractions, experiments, finances, approaches, diets, relationships, time, resources, anxiety, skills, circumstances, emotions, obligations, perceptions, tasks, frustrations, schedules, opportunities, and more; there is a distinct possibility that I might juggle as much as a person who could define himself a juggler.  Using this analogy, someone might conclude that I am an atrocious juggler and I need to find a new pursuit immediately, another person could find my perseverance admirable and therefore declare me a successful juggler, simply by virtue of the fact that I carry on, making a valiant effort even if the goal and results thus far may be vague, or the attempt itself appears futile.  After all is said and done, it basically comes down to personal philosophy and perception, and because I am still exploring my own understanding and beliefs in life, the unsettled chaos in my mind is constantly throwing me off-balance, which is not necessarily a desired circumstance when I am attempting to juggle (unless I believe that I only grow through my adversity, in which case I might view being off-balance as a ideal circumstance).   As a further demonstration of my convoluted mind, I will say that I am fretting right now that comparing my life to a juggling act is a not a good analogy.  I wonder if a reader might interpret “juggling act” as a phrase, being a complete concept in itself, or if it might also be interpreted as one two words, meaning there is a key word in the phrase.  If the key word is interpreted to be the action of “juggling” the reader may understand it in a very different way than if the key word is interpreted to be “act” which could be viewed as either an action, design, or a performance.  Words in the English language often have multiple meanings, and synonyms further add to the likelihood of miscommunication, so I find myself in a huge and ongoing struggle with the idea of using a word correctly or making a wise word choice.  I tend fret that I will not find the words that I need to accurately convey my message, which I then worry will cause me to over-explain my thoughts, and perhaps become redundant, repetitive, boring or difficult to understand and appreciate.
 
Gloria offered me this opportunity to contribute here as a writing experiment.  At the time I thought to myself, “Hey, I can do this!   I want to do this!  Of course I can write on a writing-related topic, because writing is an essential part of me, I have plenty of thoughts and feelings to share on the subject!”   But the key word for me is “experiment” because as a conflicted writer who constantly juggles ideas, which includes the concept of exploring my writing through experimentation; this was opportunity I could not resist.  Then I had a setback, or to be more succinct, I created an obstacle.  I enthusiastically said I want to contribute here, which is completely true, yet for me, writing is not just something that I want to do, writing is an act of expressing who I am, which is my purpose for writing about me right now.  As an individual and self-proclaimed writer, I cannot think of even one aspect of my life that I do not consider being relevant to writing.  My immediate problem now becomes selecting a writing-related topic for this first post, which I consider too broad a range to work with, and so I need to select a sub-topic that I feel I can write about.  A reader might think that since I have identified a goal that I am in fact, a step closer to reaching it, and hopefully, eventually, that will be true. 
 
Instead I find myself in yet another self-made quandary.  I am confronted with the confounding conundrum that I am as an individual, which is problematic for me in writing terms.  I have the impression that my mind is chaotic, which is in all honesty a great source of stress for me; paradoxically, I believe that referring to my mind as chaotic or wild, is a critical statement that is representative of some of the illogical and unjustifiable expectations I place upon myself.   Even as I deliberately choose these exact words, I am hypercritical, thinking that I may be inspiring the undesirable perception of writing drivel or of having a highfalutin pompous attitude.  Filled with self-doubt over my inability to follow some basic writing guidelines, like “less is more”, “show don’t tell”, and “be concise”, I again begin juggling.  I read and self-edit along the way, with a handy-dandy dictionary, a spell-checking tool (which I don’t always trust), and a magical phenomena many refer to as a thesaurus.  I am ambivalent about these writing tools, I feel an affinity to them and still I unrealistically expect them to create, when I know, intellectually, that they are only unchanging pokerfaced witnesses to my musings.  Again, I find myself lost in a sea of words like how and why, and I worry while I search for a raft to keep me afloat; then it comes to me, in the form of a memory.  I remind myself that words are only words until put into context, which is what I am actively striving to do.  Still in a quagmire of sludge trying to center my attention on getting myself out of this muck, there is now a shift in my focus.  This change forges a bridge where I am tempted to criticize myself for resting on my laurels as I contemplate the universe, which would not be an entirely inaccurate description.  However at this time I am still juggling; as I ponder a plan of action and seek insight about my own motivations and current perceptions, I take time to reflect knowing that if I am not actively being reflective, I cannot detect changes in my perception.  I need to be aware in order to conceive a purpose, and feeling debilitated by a lack of purpose, stops me in my tracks.
 
I see the proverbial light of recognition beginning to course its way through the density of the gray-matter in my unruly mind.  Due to the thickness this light needs to travel through, it must meander until it locates the floodgate valves which will allow it access to a permanent residence amid the mass.  
 
The evolution of writing this is also a personal journey.  I did not lack ambition, tools, experience, knowledge, resources, inspiration, perseverance, criticism, or conflict and still, nothing.  I could not reconcile my shortcomings with clichés, formulas, self-imposed deadlines, or analogies.  Being excited and enthused about writing here was not enough.  Word selection, context and sentiment, were not enough.  Even a self-professed desire and thirty-plus year’s worth of defining me as a writer could not tip the balancing scales for this Nike-wearing juggler with a “just do it” approach.  While many of these elements are found in some well-written or popular pieces of writing, there is an element that is essential to the formula that I understood intellectually but, until now, was unable to consciously apply to my writing; writing with purpose can be the revelation required that allows a writer put aside self-created obstacles in order to write.  This particular journey was fueled with aimless determination and passion and I hit several speed-bumps along the way, which I will lovingly refer to as works-in-progress but which are, in fact, about a dozen partially-written Word documents stored on my computer, and numerous notes, insights, and inspirations I have tucked away for later writing adventures.  As an experiment I would say that writing for Wild Mind is challenging and rewarding thus far and I am interested to see what may develop next from this initial conclusion.  My preconceived notion was that I might impose deadlines on myself, to post here once or twice a week; however the progress of this journey has taken much longer than I anticipated.  To arrive at this point in my trip, I have invested about two weeks of juggled time and six hours of actual sit-down-and-write time to achieve one post; I am reluctant to commit to a self-imposed writing deadline for a subsequent post, but am now determined to approach my next one with purpose.  As an evolving individual, this process has given me valuable data to consider and reflect upon to see how I might benefit from this experience in other areas of my life.  As a writer filled with conflict I am, at this moment, feeling more capable and better equipped to find the purpose in my next writing effort.  As an insecure human, I will quickly and proudly acknowledge this accomplishment.  As a ruthless self-critic I will beat myself over the head for taking this long to make it here; then in a moment of self-sympathy I will make amends and give compensation by conceding that I have earned some self-recognition for a success achieved in the company of conflict.  The self-doubt, anxiety, and guilt that tend to be constant journey companions to me, were forced to take a backseat when purpose provided a map, which turned into the metaphoric key allowing me to take the drivers wheel and steer myself toward this destination.   
 
There are numerous writing resources that can instruct and inspire and motivate; I consider Wild Mind an excellent one.  I formed this opinion based on two principles, the first one being that because it is internet-based it has inexhaustible growth potential and infinite links to other writers and resources, the second being that its broad concept is inclusive.
A writers’ life is oftentimes described as lonely, I am not convinced that description is accurate or typical, yet with a Wild Mind concept which is inclusive and inexhaustible, there becomes a number of options for a lonely writer that desires companionship during his journey. 
 
There is a famous quote by Napoleon Hill that goes like this: “Whatever the mind can Conceive and Believe it can Achieve”; I will refer to this as a CBA theory from now on.   I have been reflecting about this very quote during the entire two-week period it took me to write this so I am not surprised to see the theme it represents carrying over into my writing.  I am impressed with what Gloria has produced with Wild Mind blog, and I imagine this theme was evident in her creation.  My hectic writer’s mind allowed me to find the CBA theory relevant for me to write with purpose, which I construe as further evidence that a CBA theory is one that may become significant to me in all aspects of my life.  I needed to conceive a purpose in order to be able to believe that I could effectively communicate through writing, and believing that I could write effectively gave me the confidence I needed to be able to post here. 
 
Conceiving Purpose
Believing In Me
Achieving Results
 
I would not say there is no purpose for my juggling act because it does fuel my conflicted persona that allows me to recognize my mind as being chaotic and wild, but believing that I am a writer is my purpose for writing.