Okay so where was I when last we
visited? Now I remember. I was telling you about my recounting TV shows to my
fellow students. Let’s carry on.
In grade school, I managed to compose
some poetry. I know now that I was only sticking my toe in the water to see how
it felt. It must have felt okay because I kept at it, and once I got in high
school; I started receiving some positive feedback from people whose opinions I
valued. That feedback encouraged me to keep putting words on paper. My sophomore
year English teacher labeled me a romantic. This shocked me. How could that
statement be true? I wanted the stories I’d started to write to reflect Poe and
Sterling. I resisted accepting that brand applied to my writing.
Now – after more than thirty years – I know
she had me pegged correctly. It’s funny how sometimes people looking from the
outside in can see more than the person on the inside looking out. Even though
I now accept that label, it took years to get comfortable with it. Such is
life.
In college, I continued to straddle the
fence of storytelling. I wrote poems and some short stories. Some were okay but
most fizzled out and didn’t amount to much. Once I graduated from college, I
decided I wanted to see if I could sell some of the words I’d written onto the
page. I became a Writer’s Digest subscriber and a book club buyer. With no
typewriter available, my stores were poured out into notebooks and loose leaf
sheets of paper. I entered contests not hoping or expecting grand prizes or
awards. Sometimes a simple nod can go a long way, and I think most writers just
want someone to say, “I liked that story.”
Starving for acceptance or appreciation
is a difficult path to walk. Every moment without feeling that joy is like existing
as a water starved houseplant. Every day, the dirt gets a little harder and the
leaves become more brittle. Then one day a stiff wind comes along and kills the
last bit of life left in your dream. The books go onto the shelf. The subscription
is canceled. The notebooks with dozens of stories and pages and pages of poetry
go into a box that finds its way into a dank dark moist basement. Years later that
box degrades and falls apart. The papers damp and rotted beyond rescue find their
final resting place in a bag of trash.
Years later, I typed some words into an
email and hit send. I didn’t expect anything. I just wanted to let the lady on the
receiving end of that note to know how I felt about her. With her words of encouragement,
I continued to peck out more and more lines. She insisted I write more, and I
did. Before long, I had the first attempt at a short story in years. When she
read it, she liked it, but wanted it bigger, fuller, and bolder. I stretched
the story and bulked it up, but it never became more than a short story. Wake Me Up Someday is hanging around on
a hard drive waiting for a little work and a rough polish. Someday it’ll get both.
I'm sure.
Keeping company with that story is others.
These orphans may one day get their chance and come back to the forefront
again. If not I’ve learned some things from them, so they haven’t been works
without merit. Each one has given me more and more confidence in what I love
doing. Also they’ve helped me embrace the romantic inside me, and that’s okay.
What would this world be without love? Thanks Theresa for all your love and encouragement.
When next we meet I’ll give you the back
story of The Hurting Place. Until
then keep reading. : )
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