3: The Contest Entries

I don’t think there was a precise moment in which I started creating stories.

I’ve been creating stories for as long as I can remember. I remember pages and pages filled with goofy comics, and little summaries for stories I didn’t have the patience to go through with, often born out of a vivid dream. I remember the complex stories, sometimes funny, and sometimes tragic, I acted out with dolls and plushies. I remember whole days and nights sitting still and thinking, living wild, breath-taking adventures side by side with my motley crew of cartoon heroes and original characters. Sometimes such was the excitement that I had to get up and start pacing around the room.

I don’t know when it started, but it never stopped.

When I was a little girl, I wrote because I yearned for adventure, new worlds, stories of honour and romance – just like the ones I had lived reading the Three Musketeers, one of my favourite novels of all time. I resented the shyness that paralized me whenever I wanted to get to know a new kid, or to stand up for myself – so I made my characters courageous and charming heroines who always knew what to say. I wrote because I yearned for more.

When I was a teenage girl, I wrote because I wanted to erase the shadows. I took a girl who had hurt me and made her the villain of a fantasy novel, because she was the symbol of everything that had gone wrong. My heroines became sappy center-of-the-universe Mary Sues, and when a friend told me that maybe I was idealizing my main character too much, I brushed it off saying that I wanted to write her as the person I’d like to be, so it was fine. I wrote pages and pages to tell the reader what to think. I wrote as a way to tell myself only what I wanted to hear.

When I became a young woman, I wrote because I wanted an alibi, an easy way out. I kept restarting and revising the same book, so I wouldn’t have to face the fact that it was done. I kept an almost daily diary that was the nest of all my fears and obsessions: whenever something was wrong, instead of speaking up or doing something about it, I wrote for hours, in an effort to solve every problem inside my own mind. It always made everything worse. I needed answers, but I wasn’t prepared to face the questions. I wrote as an excuse not to act, not to live my life. And in a way, just like when I was a teen, I still wrote to tell myself only what I wanted to hear.

Then a time came when I couldn’t flee anymore, when I finally came to terms with how this behaviour was impacting my life. It was then that I realized that “writing is not an alibi”, and that sentence has been with me ever since. It’s a reminder – of where I come from, of what I am, and of what I’m capable of doing to myself.

Right now, I’ll be 29 in a couple of weeks, and I still write, always in Italian, my first language.

I’m writing fantasy, because I still yearn for adventure, and I love the challenge of creating my own fantasy, instead of imitating the classics. I’m writing an introverted heroine who grows out of her shell and learns to stand up for herself, and I chose to hurt her, so she has to face both her weaknesses and her dark side.

I’m not writing or revising the same old book again and again: I’ve cast that project aside for the moment until I understand what I want to do with it. I’m writing something entirely different right now, and I know that one day it will be done, and then I’ll write another book. And so on.

Because when I stopped making up excuses for myself, I realized that I had something to say. My love for adventure and new worlds, for winning against impossible odds, for overcoming weaknesses and shadows, my conscience that actions matter, and my need for answers – this was what mattered, and I didn’t care for sappy Mary Sues, comfortable answers and easy ways out anymore. This was what I had to say, and if I didn’t, who else could?

Of course, this is not going to be easy. Revising, publishing, making a career out of writing – it’s going to be tough. But it’s an adventure. And hoping for an easy adventure is completely missing the point.

This is why I write. I write because I have questions to ask and demons to fight, and millions of worlds trapped inside that haven’t yet seen the light of day, I write because I have something to say, and I don’t care for the easy way out anymore. I write because I can’t let all of this fade away, and because I want to reach people with what I say – not to let them make up excuses or tell them what they want to hear, but to spark new questions. And in the end of it all, I write because I love it.

Writing is not an alibi, and I have learned this lesson the hard way.

I write because it matters. To me.

http://dasteroad.tumblr.com/post/480398682/be-a-character-in-talysmana-contest-entry

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She didn’t realize at first that she was fighting herself.

Part of her loved to tell stories, loved to write, loved to make people laugh or think. That was the part who recounted childhood dreams in excruciating detail to her mother, and who made up stories for other children, gamely trying to incorporate interjections like “the howling of dead bunnies” into the adventures of “Plum, the purple kitten.”

Part of her, though, was fearful – afraid of being judged, criticized, or even hated for her stories, whether for their content or for the audacity of thinking they were worth listening to. That was the part of her who told her no one wanted to listen to her dreams, and who took every interruption or criticism of a story as a personal attack.

As time went by, her fear gained the upper hand. Her storytelling self kept reveling in strange dreams and odd ideas, but her fearful self made her hide them away in notebooks where no one else could see.

She wrote about other worlds – magical and far-future, with forests and jungles, caverns and catacombs, and strange cities full of stranger people. She wrote about rebels and outlaws, normal people fighting great evil, and odd people just fighting to be understood. She loved it, and while anyone who knew her well knew she was writing, she hid it, pretending it didn’t matter to her, because her fearful self said that was the only way to be safe.

Her fear couldn’t totally suppress her desire to share her stories, though. She wanted to be a story-teller, not just a story-creator, and occasionally that desire slipped past the bounds of fear.

In grade school, she entered a story about a dragon and a housekeeper into the library writing contest and won second prize.

In high school, she read Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Sword and Sorceress anthologies, and wrote a story to submit. She asked her father to read and critique it, but her fear took the critique as “not good enough” and she never sent it in.

In college, she went to her first live-action role-playing event, where a chance comment inspired the story of The Great Rabbit George, which was well-received. She enjoyed both the story and her audience’s reactions, and thought she would finally start sharing all of her stories. Fear got in the way again though, blocking her creativity every time she started a story with the intent to share it.

This time, however, she noticed, and the long battle between creativity and fear became a conscious one.

Her fear wasn’t easy for her to see, let alone fight. She started journaling, writing extensive question and answer sessions with herself, trying to understand her fear and find ways around it. She also kept writing dreams and bits and pieces of fiction, although quietly, privately.

After graduation, she worked for a concierge service – searching the Internet for anything their customers wanted, from giraffe print sheets to hot air balloon rides in Morocco. Soon, it seemed the most natural thing in the world to search the Internet for herself too. She found a wealth of free writing advice, from sites like http://www.sfwa.org, http://HollyLisle.com, and http://www.NaNoWriMo.org. She read through workshops and tried them out, and spent hours on the commuter rail writing stories and journaling.

Gradually, she gained ground on her fear. She posted stories on LiveJournal for her friends to read, and shared a bit of an unfinished novel with a coworker. She didn’t really believe it when her coworker said, “You shouldn’t be working here, you should be writing!” but she remembered, and over the next few years she often looked to that moment for encouragement.

In addition to journaling about writing, she journaled about work – specifically, why she was unsatisfied with work and what she wanted to do. While what she *wanted* to do was write, she kept throwing the idea out and looking for something else. Her fear was still too strong, and it convinced her that she couldn’t make a living by writing fiction, that she needed to have a “real” job to pay the bills.

Years passed. Her writing efforts were sporadic, because paying the bills came first. She kept searching the Internet for help, though, reading new articles as she found them and reading more and more blogs by professional authors. It was the author blogs that finally convinced her that you could pay the bills by writing fiction, although they also made it clear that it would take a lot of work.

Truly believing it was possible made all the difference. She committed herself to writing as a career goal rather than a hobby, and started looking at her writing skills and habits analytically. Writing as a career wouldn’t just mean writing well, but writing a lot, and writing reliably.

She realized that she needed help learning to finish stories, and a lot more practice. In April 2009, she took her first paid course in writing fiction. After several false starts, she used what she had learned to plan an idea for National Novel Writing Month, and finished a 50,000-word novel for the first time.

She also came up with a plan for getting the practice she needed and fighting her fear at the same time. She registered the domain http://AntheaStrezze.com and set herself a Story a Week Challenge, to post a new story to the website every week for a year.

Now, in March 2010, she’s still writing, still posting a story every week, still loving it – and finally, her creative self is overcoming her fearful self. The fear is still there, the battle is still going, but the tide has turned at last.

http://antheastrezze.com/blog/2010/03/28/talysmana-com-contest-entry/

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The old woman tucked her prayer beads in one of the pockets of her voluminous maroon and gold tiered skirts. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. The early morning breeze rustled her long hair. Chilled, she buried her fingers under the thin cloth of her turquoise tunic and shivered. The black fringed shawl did little to warm her.

Vagabonds and workers bustled around her. Some begged for money. Some pretended not to see or hear them as they hustled back and forth from one business to another. She watched them all. Sometimes her thoughts danced in the worlds only she could see. She waltzed from one identity to another; delighting in the lives she created. Yet she always came back to her own.

The guards across the street meandered towards a pair of toughs huddled against the rain shelter. A woman with a pair of toddlers and a babe in arms hurried past her, swearing as spray from the fountain splattered them. Life thrived around the old woman.

In her moments of lucidity, she rejoiced in their lives, welcoming the tidbits of overheard conversations. She let her heart go out to them as she shared their sorrows unnoticed. She whispered prayers for them as they bemoaned their burdens. For a moment she paused to wonder if she should send word of their needs to the monastery that had been her former home. The sisters would gladly share her efforts to intercede for her poor people. She decided not. The needs of today would only be swept away by the needs of tomorrow.  She had no money to pay for such an undertaking and her connections with the sisters had long since passed.

She belonged to a different order now. No safe secure monastery of only women for her. She lived on the streets as a Secular Carmelite. Her brown scapular and crucifix safely held in trust by one of her sisters in the order at a nearby city. Her study books were kept by a brother Carmelite in another.  Her memories of her Carmelite community prodded at her. Raising her eyes to the rising sun, she prayed for them. Keep them safe and strong in the faith she asked. Let them guard and protect those in need with their lives and prayers.

Sighing softly she glanced down towards the guards. The toughs were shuffling down the street. Guide them safely back to You, she prayed. For a moment images tugged at her mind. She felt a flicker of other worlds tempting her. Resolutely she pushed them aside. Her duty called.

She slid her arms through the pack and hoisted it into position on her back. Clutching the pair of mismatched canes she began hobbling down the street. As she moved she watched the people who passed her. To a woman in nursing whites she smiled, the man with the harried look on his face collected another smile. When the nervous executive reluctantly met her eyes she grinned and chirped a hearty good morning. She snickered internally as she wondered what his reaction would have been to a “cock a doodle doo” instead. Happily she let the joys of life stretch out and embrace the sadness, fear and drudgery of those around her. With each touch and comment she drew them a single step back from the dark. She praised a hairstyle. She admired an outfit. One by one she changed to tone of their day, gave them a moment of light.

She walked the streets fearlessly. These were her people. The good, the bad, they were all hers. She had lived their lives. She remembered their joys and sorrows. She knew the pain of loss and loneliness as only the old and homeless can. She knew their temptations. Memories of youthful gang life trickled across her awareness. She gave them all she had. Moments of peace, hope, faith and love. It was all she had. She hoped it would be enough.

As you can see, I also like to write. I am truly homeless and have lived on the streets for over a year. It isn’t as the movies portray it. It’s filled with interesting people and a never ending variety of experiences.  It can lead to a spiritual awakening that only those who have lived it can truly appreciate. It’s been one of the best things to have ever happened to me. I hope I’ve helped you to see us as we really are. Take care and have a blessed day. –Peaches

http://peachesteaberry.wordpress.com/2010/03/28/3/

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Entry 01: http://hanakiri.deviantart.com/art/Icarus-Again-158348511

Entry 02: http://hanakiri.webs.com/MyNotebook/Poetry/PopUps/Corpse%20Plane%20to%20Paradise.htm

Entry 03: http://hanakiri.webs.com/MyNotebook/Poetry/PopUps/The%20Deceased.htm

Entry 04: http://hanakiri.webs.com/MyNotebook/Poetry/PopUps/Exodus%20of%20No%20Direction.htm

Entry 05: http://hanakiri.webs.com/MyNotebook/Poetry/PopUps/Heaven%20or%20Hell%20Memories%20Past.htm

Entry 06: http://hanakiri.webs.com/MyNotebook/Poetry/PopUps/I%20Don%27t%20Love%20You%20and%20other%20lies.htm

Entry 07: http://hanakiri.webs.com/MyNotebook/Poetry/PopUps/Please%20Bring%20Me%20Some%20Water.htm

Entry 08: http://hanakiri.webs.com/MyNotebook/Poetry/PopUps/Seperation%20of%20God%20and%20Man.htm

Entry 09: http://hanakiri.webs.com/MyNotebook/Poetry/PopUps/The%20Smallest%20Star.htm

Entry 10: http://hanakiri.webs.com/MyNotebook/Poetry/PopUps/Wall%20Cracks.htm

Entry 11: http://www.fileden.com/files/2006/12/21/539976/Poetry/Breathe.mp3

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I am a man,
Tall, fat, and diabetic,
Yet I can’t help but love myself.

You might ask,
Why am I so honest about my physicality?
Why don’t I care about my body?
The truth is, I do care.

I’ve been big for as long as I can remember.
At school, kids would make fun of me.
I wasn’t completely ostracized,
But I wasn’t the most popular kid, either,
I was just the big kid, the fat kid.

I took it hard at first.
I cried to my mother,
I wanted her help,
And she did, for a while,
But it didn’t really help,
It just made the kids make fun of me more.

And so, one day, I decided it wasn’t worth it anymore.
I decided that being made fun of wasn’t so bad,
Just like mother always said,
The other kids only did it to make themselves feel better.
So instead of letting it bother me, I made it my creed.

If kids were always going to be mean,
If there was always someone who was going to made fun of,
Whether it be because of their weight, or their height, or the games they like,
Why not let it be me?

After so long of being made fun of,
I was used to it,
I could stand being made fun of.

It was that decision,
That I would make myself an easy target for bullying,
That shaped the way my life developed,
Because I was free to be myself.

I brought a polka CD into my first day at a new school,
The big kid once again,
But this time I was even stranger,
Because I liked reading, and science, and polka,
Most people didn’t even know what polka was.

In high school,
A Catholic high school, nonetheless,
I joined the roleplaying club,
And played tabletop roleplaying games with my computer teacher,
And a whole bunch of kids who I might never have met otherwise,
Kids who were even cooler than the popular kids.

I performed in musicals and chorus,
I learned that I love a cappella music,
I learned that I was not homosexual,
Though maybe a bit bisexual,
Which I don’t think is that bad of a thing.

In college, I tried a bunch of things.
I joined a live comedy group,
I joined an all male a cappella group,
And I finally determined what I wanted to do in life.

I now write on a regular basis.
Poetry, fiction, essays,
All of it is possible.

I have created worlds,
Worlds in which other people have played,
My friends and I roll dice,
All the while pretending to be people, and creatures, we aren’t.

This is me.
This is my life.
I don’t know why I’m here,
And I don’t know if there’s anything else,
But since I’m here, I going to be myself.

I have a girlfriend,
Going on a year and a half now,
And I’m happy as can be.
I have close friends all around me,
And we do all sorts of things together,
It seems like a blissful existence.

But I have another side.
Sure, my life is great,
But sometimes I can’t see it that way.
Sometimes, all I want is for everyone to go away,
For my thoughts to be all I have.

I’ve wished ill upon people.
I’ve played out vivid and disturbing fantasies in my mind,
Just to divert my anger and frustration away from the real world,
And this happens with shocking regularity.

There is an anger within me,
And anger which swells at the most mundane of occurrences,
And the worst part is that some of my best creativity comes from that anger.

How can I be so loving to some,
Yet so horrid and vindictive to others?
Do others feel like this?
And if they do, do they feel like it as often as I do?

Anger is a significant part of me,
As is hate and spite and lust,
But there are other sides to me too.
Such as fear, melancholy, and love,
And more things than I can count.

I suffer from a very common fear,
The fear of death and oblivion.
I was once counseled for it,
But it didn’t much help once my therapist moved his office outside a cemetery.
I’ve conquered it now, mostly,
But it still pops up every so often.

Then there’s the melancholy.
That horrible, hollow feeling of emptiness,
Of not quite sorrow,
But a longing for anything else to be in its place,
Even if it’s only hate.

All these things, and more, inspire me,
They lead me to create more and more,
To build worlds,
To build minds.

I have made villains,
I have made heroes,
I have made ordinary, day-to-day people.

This is me.
I am a maker of things,
Some good, some bad,
But all of them mine.

I live, I love, I hate.
I am a mess of contradictions,
Just like everyone else,
But somehow I’m unique,
Or so everyone tells me.

This world would go on without me,
But I like to hope that I can somehow make a difference to it,
Even if it’s only a single person.
Whether it be by my writings,
Or by my life,
I like to think that I have, or will, somehow help the world.

I have hopes and dreams,
I have thoughts and desires,
I am a living person.
I am a dreamer, and a hater, and a lover.
I might not be perfect,
But I still love myself,
And I think that’s some of what makes me, me.

http://domriso.deviantart.com/art/Entry-1-158565713

{ 1 comment }

Does anyone else find it funny that most artists aren’t satisfied with their own work? Or even go as far as to claim they hate it? Once you think about it, isn’t it strange how an artist of any kind seems to naturally compare her work with another’s? As if another person’s work can tell her whether the product of her time, sweat, and soul is “good enough?”

I pose the question: “good enough” for what, exactly?

I admit, I’m guilty of this compare-contrast business–a repeat offender, in fact.
To put it in its simplest terms, I was like a trained dog. Before I drew my next picture, or wrote my next story, my brain would take total control. It would remind me over and over, in a voice that seemed to talk down to me, “If you make ‘good’ art, you will get your bone.” And sure, the bone doesn’t last forever. Sometimes it’s a Chihuahua-sized Milk Bone, and other times it’s a huge cow-leg bone; but no matter what, the flavor eventually wears off, and I’m stuck trying to devise a crafty way to get another one. I stare at the blank page and think, fanart of a popular comic, or TV show, perhaps? Those always get the most views and comments.

In other words, “I’m going to create what other people want, not what I want. Because I’ll get more good attention.” It’s true, fanart artists tend to get legions of fans typing in all caps “OMG HE’S SO CUTE! I LOVE HIM! YOU DID SUCH A GREAT JOB!” But, when I used to do fanart of any kind, I wondered, where those people commenting on my actual work, or simply the fact that I drew a certain character that they like?

Don’t get me wrong, fanart is all fine and dandy–if you really like a character. But, to me, it’s not okay when you do it soley for attention.

It wasn’t just me, I saw this pattern everywhere, and still do. It makes me wonder, are modern artists convinced they are the slaves of the public? Do they think that they’re only worth what everyone else thinks of them? It sure seems that way.

But, why would an artist even care? Why would she make art just to please others? It’s just one motive in a whole ocean of reasons to make art, and yet, especially on online art communities, the concept of becoming popular and being seen as an “expert” has literally taken over the system.

But now, at 18 years of age, I no longer allow myself to fall into this trap. Why? Because it’s all relative. I repeat, the world of art is relative. After two years of belonging to DeviantART, I eventually figured out that, when I compare my artwork or writing to other pieces that I consider to be “higher” than my own, I feel like a steaming pile of crap, useful only to dung beetles–the artists somehow “lower” than me on the imaginary art-awesomeness scale that all of us in the community seem to have down to a tee. It’s basically one big micro-society, with its own unspoken rules and norms.

But comparing your work to another “superior” artist tends to have the unfortunate side-effect of stifling your creativity. “His art is amazing. When I compare it to mine, my art is horrible. I should just stop drawing. I’ll never be that skilled.” Envy can be like kryptonite for the Muse. Sure, it can motivate you sometimes, but all-too-often for the wrong reasons. If you want to look at the work of artists you look up to, do it for inspiration. Do it to learn something.
Why do so many artists want to copy the works of another, instead of developing their own, unique style? Your style is special, and is the thing that will really get your work noticed. Honestly, the world of art would be terribly boring if we all drew just like da Vinci, or wrote exactly like Shakespeare.

Always ask yourself, what’s really important here? What is art for, anyway?
If beauty’s in the eye of the beholder, then who has the right to judge what’s considered “decent,” anyway? Sometimes the only difference is that Mr.Amazing Artist has just been at the craft longer than you.

Your time will come.

My advice to all artists: no matter what you do, for God’s sake, just do it. Follow your soul, not the biased comments under your latest upload. Critiques are great, when they’re done respectfully. Listen to those. But please, ignore anyone that tells you “you suck.” Because, in reality, they could just be jealous of you! Remember, you can only get better over time. Patience and persistence is the key. That, and thick skin.

View this entry here.

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Please visit the link below to see the image Charlotte has attached to her entry.

When I hated my real life, I created a different one for myself. I played out scenes and developed worlds during long, boring car trips when my sister sullenly ignored me, and when my parents never asked what I thought or how I felt. Sometimes I played scenes over and over, each time filling in more colors and layering in more details. In this imagined world, my double life, no one laughed at my awkwardness or my unconventional ideas. I gave life to characters that cared about who I was and listened to what I had to say. If they weren’t originally my characters, I revised them and played them however I wanted. I set aside portions of my imagined world for exploring danger, saving the day, inventing, and venting frustration. Oftentimes, I was a massive dragon ripping out floors from skyscrapers or tearing through crowds of all of the people I hated for making fun of me or ignoring my pleas for friendship.

I knew pain, and I knew anger. I designed other places in my mental world as places of calm, where afternoon light bathed a golden field and the air smelled of flowers. But not all of my worlds were peaceful retreats–some were expressions of hurt, and others were bitter fights to assert my right to exist in other people’s eyes. What I truly sought through these worlds was balance and understanding of life as a whole. Sometimes you have to bring out the darkness, but the trick is combining it with the light. I still have difficulty doing so to this day.

My double life ended once I was out of the car, and during the return trip it continued where I had left off. Very little was ever written down because I didn’t yet feel the need.

My imagined worlds have grown deeper into my real life ever since I moved away from Alaska and left those long road trips behind. When I entered my other world, my old home filtered through and settled into every empty crevice. The more I miss it, the stronger my double life pulls and yearns to be written, and the more I remember the worlds I imagined. It’s no longer enough to dam these worlds in my mind–they are pushing so hard to spill into the real world that I lie awake at night, unable to sleep. Sometimes, the power of these waters is so great that I feel it was a mistake to move away from the one place where I could control them.

Another part of me is crying to let those dams break open. My waking and imagined lives are now inseparable anyhow, and the latter is calling me. Sometimes, when I gaze out the car window, I still see the dragon of my silent world running beside me.

http://icewall42.weebly.com/second-entry.html

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I’ve always been a writer. I’ve played with other forms of creativity – I dabble in 3D art, and I occasionally pick up a camera and snap a few photos – but those things are just for fun. Writing is more than that for me.

I write to understand.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve felt like an explorer in uncharted territory, an alien making contact with a new species. The rules and customs that other people learned instinctively left me confused. I’ve always been the one who says the wrong things, who makes the wrong assumptions, who doesn’t get the jokes or know when to read between the lines.

It’s a good place to be.

Like any explorer, I made a fool of myself many times; I learned to stay on the sidelines and make myself invisible. Like any good explorer, I started watching and listening… and found that my spot on the sidelines was the best place to see the stories. I saw people’s loves and hates and hypocrisies; I saw what was contradictory, what was absurd, what was admirable. And the more I saw, the more fascinated I became. How could I not want to write some of those stories down?

In doing so, I discovered that writing down those stories didn’t just let me record my observations – it also helped me make sense of them.

I write to connect.

I write myself into the heads of people who fascinate me – the ones I can relate to and the ones I don’t understand at all. I learn about people in order to write about them, and the more I write about them, the more I learn. In my writing I can get inside somebody else’s head in a way that’s impossible in real life… and each time I do, I understand a little more about all the different ways there are to see the world.

My stories aren’t just a reflection of others, of course. More than anything else, they’re a reflection of me. What matters to me, what drives me, my own complexities and flaws and triumphs. When I write, I combine my inner world with the world I’ve spent twenty-three years observing – and in addition to seeing the places where the two diverge, I can see the connections. And when I share my stories with others, they understand my world a little better, and see their world through somebody else’s eyes.

I write because I love stories.

Books have been a huge part of my life since before I could read by myself. I read to make sense of the world and to escape from it. Fiction is easier to understand than reality, and more forgiving; maybe that’s why I’ve always been drawn to it. I was the kind of kid who would rather sit inside with a book than go out and play, and I haven’t changed much since then – you’re much more likely to find me curled up with a book than out on the town.

I can’t do without stories; it’s like an addiction. Fiction is a way to see into other people’s lives, and to try out those lives for a while; it’s also communication, a completely different kind of communication than nonfiction. Stories – good stories, anyway – show the same things I look for when I watch the people around me: they show what people are made of, and what worlds are made of, and the horrible and wonderful things about humanity. It’s a conversation I want to be part of.

I write because I have to.

There was never a moment when I decided to be a writer. Other writers have stories of being encouraged by a particular teacher, or a certain novel, or a story idea that just wouldn’t go away; it wasn’t like that for me. It never occurred to me that I wouldn’t write novels.

Some writers talk about getting discouraged and giving up. I don’t understand that. It’s not that I think it’s wrong; it’s that the concept simply doesn’t make sense to me. I have days when I think my writing is about as pretty as the cat’s hairballs; I’ve had days when I couldn’t wring more than three words out of an uncooperative muse; I’ve looked at my stack of rejection letters and wondered if I’ll still be just as far from publication fifty years from now. But taking another path isn’t an option, any more than I could change the color of my eyes.

And my writing means something.

I don’t tend to think about my writing having any significance outside my own mind. After all, the only thing I’ve had published is a short story in a tiny local newspaper; most of my stories have only been read by a couple of friends. I tell myself that I’m only writing for myself, and that my writing won’t mean anything to anyone but me. But then I remember – I write to connect, too.

And I’ve had people tell me my stories have stuck with them years later. I’ve had people say, “Something happened to me today that made me remember that scene in your book.” When I put a story out into the world, even if I only show it to one other person, it creates ripples; an idea that once existed only in my head is now in somebody else’s. I may never be a bestselling author, but I’ve created stories out of nothing and made them come alive inside other people’s minds. I still don’t quite fit in this world, but when I write I add something to it that wasn’t there before.

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