Coming Home to Allvoices

My family tree is brimming with writers, journalists, editors, and poets. For me, there's nothing more personal or powerful as the written word, whether words that flow from deep within my DNA through my pen or keyboard into songs or stories, or words from other authors that spark my heart and senses and help put life in perspective. I have been passionate about writing from a very early age and when I was nine my father bought me a guitar, which started my songwriting juices flowing. I worked on school newspapers throughout my education and studied Journalism in college, but whether real or perceived the business of reporting unbiased news left me feeling unfulfilled as a writer, tethered my viewpoints, and squashed my creative spirit. I truly loved writing editorials and human interest stories and even did a political cartoon that turned out pretty darn good for someone that could put prose to paper but "couldn't draw a straight line," but the expectations of a cub reporter required me to pound a beat under tight deadlines, remain neutral and unemotional, and witness editors "bend, fold, staple, and mutilate" my articles-my art-crammed into tight "puzzle piece" page layouts or relegated to some obscure page under the fold. I was probably too naïve, but when I felt my inner voice was being dampened I divorced Journalism and took a different professional direction. Interestingly, my career path in technology found me building global communications networks and supporting companies that delivered self-publishing and self-expression capabilities to world-wide communities. I continued writing, but focused my creative attention to songwriting, where I relished in condensing "novels" [figuratively] into a few short lines of lyrical rhymes married with melodies. My sentiments were carried in song for decades while my hunger to share my perspectives in story never waned. Then, I found Allvoices. Here, I can rekindle the youthful fire that burned to share my stories and perspectives with the world. And I join with so many others whose stories, sentiments, and sensibilities flow freely, unedited, uninhibited, just real and rich and raw and credible, which I've never experienced in my life from the myriad of conventional news sources. I sincerely appreciate the opportunity to share my story and contribute to the success of Allvoices and this incredible global community-where I have finally come home. - jongleur