Empty Inkwell

Inspi­ra­tion behind the name…

Fol­low­ing this blog means you’re fol­low­ing me: a wife and mother of one with an unused under­grad­u­ate degree in lit­er­a­ture and writ­ing, and a part time, work-from-home book­keep­ing job… an aspir­ing writer with too many dis­trac­tions and no inspi­ra­tion to write the things I thought I would.

I used to think I’d one day punch out bril­liant word after word for a “smart” mag­a­zine. Who knows—someday I still may—but for the time being I am con­tent to be where I am with my nearly empty inkwell. Thoughts escape me almost as quickly as they come, and nearly every piece I begin sits as an incom­plete Word doc­u­ment in my computer’s ever-expanding “writ­ing projects” folder. My energy and drive to fin­ish them has been trans­ferred to my hus­band, Matt, and beau­ti­ful daugh­ter, Cora, among the other daily twists and turns of life.

My pas­sion for writing—no—obsession with writ­ing, cou­pled with the incon­ve­nient need for per­fec­tion has resulted in a stand­still for my writ­ing career—or lack thereof—and the launch of this blog. It is my voice. And my oppor­tu­nity to keep writ­ing about the only thing I can focus on long enough to actu­ally write about—the here and now—life. Each day holds mate­r­ial and fills up my inkwell just a lit­tle, and each day I empty it here. After all, you can’t be a writer unless you actu­ally write; and as William Zinsser said in his book, On Writ­ing Well (a must-read for any aspir­ing writer):

“The longer I work at the craft of writ­ing, the more I real­ize that there’s noth­ing more inter­est­ing than the truth. What peo­ple do—and what peo­ple say—continues to take me by sur­prise with its won­der­ful­ness, or its quirk­i­ness, or its drama, or its humor, or its pain. Who could invent all the aston­ish­ing things that really hap­pen?”

So here I am—writing about things that really hap­pen (and the many thoughts the hap­pen­ings inspire along the way). Zinsser is right—it’s actu­ally quite a ride. Enjoy.

More about the author…

My name is Janell. As I men­tioned above, I am wife to a won­der­ful man, Matt (who also hap­pens to be my high school sweet­heart), and mother of one adorable daugh­ter, Cora. Fam­ily means the world to me. I come from a large one with seven chil­dren; my broth­ers and sis­ters are my best friends. Though I am not plan­ning to sur­pass my mother, my hope is to have a large fam­ily of my own and to teach my chil­dren the value of rela­tion­ships and the love that comes from a close fam­ily.

I’m artistic—or so I like to think. I enjoy paint­ing, scrap­book­ing, and pho­tog­ra­phy. I’ve loved lit­er­a­ture and writ­ing since I was a child; I used to write my name and favorite words over and over again just to see the way they looked on paper. I would pre­tend to read before I actu­ally knew how and began writ­ing before I entered kinder­garten.

I love the smell of new books and sharp­ened pen­cils and spend­ing hours in bookstores—and cof­fee shops—definitely cof­fee shops. My sec­ond obses­sion (next to writ­ing) would def­i­nitely have to be with cof­fee. It’s not even that I need it to func­tion, as some do—it’s more of a mind thing for me. A cup of cof­fee just makes me feel like my day is start­ing out, or end­ing, just right.

I love Jesus. He ended his life to save mine, and for that I am eter­nally grate­ful and try to live every moment of every day to honor Him. My hus­band and I both work for our church. He (as a sec­ond job—told you he is amaz­ing) is the assis­tant youth direc­tor, and I was recently blessed with the church’s finan­cial direc­tor posi­tion (I worked in account­ing all through col­lege), which allows me to work from home and be there for my lit­tle girl at the same time.

Thanks for stop­ping by. Feel free to con­tact me and/or leave com­ments. I usu­ally try to include a response ques­tion in my posts for inter­ac­tive read­ing, but you are wel­come to respond in any way you’d like. Happy read­ing…