Where My Origin Story Begins

Every writer has an origin story. Some people think it starts with the first book — the one with a spine and a cover and an ISBN number. But for me, the beginning is here. On this website. In these early posts. In the quiet decision to finally show up for the dream I’ve carried my whole life.

This space is my beginning.

Not because I’m new to writing — I’ve been writing since childhood — but because this is the first time I’ve allowed myself to take my writing seriously. To claim it. To say out loud: I am a writer, and this is where my story starts.

In a way, this website is the preface to my first book. The soft opening. The moment before the moment. The place where I gather myself, find my voice again, and let the world see the version of me that has always existed beneath the responsibilities, the survival, the motherhood, the degrees, the work, the years of putting myself last.

My first book will be my origin story too — not because it will be autobiographical, but because it will be the first time my voice steps fully into the world. The first time my stories leave the safety of notebooks and scraps of paper and late‑night ideas. The first time I let my imagination breathe outside the walls of my own mind.

But this website… this is where the roots are.

This is where I practice being seen.
Where I practice telling the truth.
Where I practice trusting that my words matter.

Every post is a small declaration:
I’m here. I’m writing. I’m beginning.

And beginnings are sacred.

They don’t always look dramatic. Sometimes they look like a simple blog post written at the end of a long day. Sometimes they look like a quiet promise whispered to yourself. Sometimes they look like choosing to make time for the dream you’ve carried since childhood.

This is my origin story — the one that starts before the book, before the shelves, before the readers. The one that starts with me choosing myself.

One day, when my book is in someone’s hands — in a library, on a bookstore table, tucked into a grocery store aisle — I’ll look back at this space and know: This is where it all began.

— Leigh C. Mitchell

Leigh C. Mitchell
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One response to “Where My Origin Story Begins”

  1. Dabir Dalton Avatar
    Dabir Dalton

    I began writing poetry when I was sixteen and stopped writing in my early twenties.

    I didn’t start writing again consistently until after the death of my father in the mid nineties.

    When I became suicidal because of the rumors that the plant where I’d worked for over eighteen years was going to close.

    That was when I realized for the first time that I had made the mistake, of allowing my job to become my identity, the loss of which was going to be devastating.

    My solution was to start writing again creating a new identity as a Poet that didn’t depend on my employment or lack thereof.

    One of the executives I knew asked me if I was going to be ok when the plant closed, and, I was able to tell him I would be ok because my identity was that of a Poet.

    Jobs may come and go but being a Poet isn’t dependent on where I’m employed or what I do.

    I’m a Poet and will always be a Poet which is an identity that no one can strip away from me.

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Leigh C. Mitchell