There's a first time for everything

Yeah. So. I'm blogging. *scratches head*

I really don't know what I'm doing here. This was a very spur of the moment decision to search "blog" on Givoogle (more on that later, I think.). The whole idea was presented to me at an annual Christmas party. The conversation went something like this:

My cousin: "What are you planning on majoring in?"

Me: "English in Writing."

My cousin: "That's cool, but...well I hate to say this, but there are not many jobs out there for English majors."

Me (sighing internally): "I get that, but there's not much else I enjoy enough to study that extensively."

My cousin: "You know what you should do?"

Me: "What's that?"

My cousin: "Start a blog."

Me (laughing): "I don't have anything to say that anyone would care about reading. Plus, I thought blogs were a little 2002. Like Xanga."

My cousin: "No, blogs are really popular. It can't hurt to try."

And that brings me to now, sitting at my computer with stacks of CD's to add to my iTunes and tons of stories in my head to write.

Hmm.

I should probably explain more about myself, I suppose.

I am nineteen, turning twenty in May. I live in Missouri. I have a full ride scholarship to a local community college, but this fall I am transferring to University of Missouri - Columbia. And my dream career is to be a novelist, my backup career is non-existent.

Go ahead, laugh at my impracticality. I'll wait.

...

Okay, you good? All out of your system? Awesome, moving right along.

I don't know what I am going to write about or how consistent the posts will be. But I think it might be good practice. Like stretching before working out, I could write blogs to encourage me to write more on my own fictional stories. Perhaps even post excerpts and get feedback from any readers I might maybe get.

I'll promise up front that I won't write about boring teenage/early twenties drama. For example: "Like O-M-G! Billy TOTALLY smiled at me today!" or "Like O-M-G! Edward Cullen is so perfect and Taylor Lautner is so sexy!"

Even though I am a Twilight fan. Once again, laugh. I shall wait.

...

This time I'm cutting off your laughter. If you are still reading this nonsensical post, that is.

Allow me to explain the title of this blog, called "The Labyrinth." It took a while to even think of an idea, since I have no idea where I'm going with this. "The Labyrinth" is a reference to a favorite book of mine by author/vlogger John Green titled Looking for Alaska. Here is the specific quote I was considering:

"You spend your whole life stuck in the labyrinth, thinking about how you'll escape it one day, and how awesome it will be, and imagining the future keeps you going, but you never do it. You just use the future to escape the present."

That's a small part of the book. The idea of life being "a labyrinth of suffering" runs throughout the entire novel. I feel like that is what my posts will generally be concerning...me finding a way through the labyrinth.

I'll wrap this up with what I mentioned at the beginning of the post: Givoogle. This is the same as Google, only it was created by Emerson Spartz and his fiancé Gaby Montero. Every time you search something on this site, advertisers pay these two lovely people money. The more people who search and see their ads, the more the advertisers pay the creators. Emerson and Gaby are donating 100% of the money they get from advertisements to help find a cure for cancer. To quote them: "If just 0.01% of people currently using Google switch to Givoogle, we can raise millions of dollars to fight cancer!" This search engine is set as my homepage and I talk about it as much as I can to get people to use it. So go use it, now, because I said so =)

Until next time, folks!