I always liked to write. It was a way to vent.

I really used it when I was angry, sad or experiencing a fear.

I could express my negative emotions onto a sheet of paper lickety-split.

And I do mean in no time flat.

I knew why I was mad and I knew what made me sad.

When I wrote in a journal it was all about the projection of fear.

And fear is no stranger to journalism.

It breeds fear.

Looking back, my decision to study reporting completely made sense.

Little did I know that I was about to get the biggest lesson I've ever experienced.

I've been a reporter at the Greene County Daily World for almost five years and I've always wondered what brought me here.

I started this job about two days after getting my Bachelor of Science in journalism.

I remember it quite clear.

The editor called me right before graduation and asked if I was interested in a position at the paper. (He knew me because I'd already interned here.)

And the rest is history.

But, as a journalism major I had doubts that I would ever work as a full-time reporter. I just wanted a degree. That degree whether it be in journalism or sociology was my ticket to another career.

In a way I trusted that the universe would find me where I needed to be.

So it's quite ironic that I landed a job as a reporter right after graduating.

I never dreamed of that one.

I've often laughed at the irony.

Here I am smack dab in the middle of local government reporting news in my hometown-- the last place I thought I'd ever be.

And all along I couldn't put it together.

I'm quite sure that if I was adamant about being a reporter at my hometown paper that it would have never happened like it did.

I've drove myself nuts trying to find the lesson I am to learn here.

In the mean time, I was given a blessing in disguise. A blank sheet of paper that I can fill with whatever my heart holds.

And you're reading it now.

This is the one place I am able to write. The one place that takes me back to where my writing began. My column is an expression of me.

And it's allowed me to grow from an angry writer to one with soul.

You see it's taken awhile to put it together...but now I have clarity.

There's a reason why journalists are called journalists and writers are called writers.

Journalists don't write, they report. Writers create.

Reporting takes skill. Writing takes soul.

Let me explain.

I'm a reporter when I cover a meeting or conduct an interview for a news story.

I'm a reporter when you share your story with me.

Reporting is all about the truth of another.

It conveys what someone else has said in the form of news.

And sometimes this means that one's lie is another's truth.

But, I don't report to live.

I live to write.

When I write my words reflect my soul.

Writing is my truth.

I write for me and I'm not afraid of getting personal.

I like to go deep.

That's what writers do.

Creating emotion through writing is art -- especially when you create love.

It's all so simple. I should have known it all along.

Being a reporter has allowed me to find my soul.

And to me, that's quite an epiphany.

"You should write, first of all to please yourself. You shouldn't care a damn about anybody else at all. But writing can't be a way of life; the important part of writing is living. You have to live in such a way that your writing emerges from it." -- Doris Lessing, British novelist

Timberly is a staff writer at the Greene County Daily World. She can be reached by e-mail at tferree@gcdailyworld.com or by phone at 1-800-947-4487 or (812) 847-4487.