The Value of Hope...

I can remember the moment as if it were yesterday…

It was a brisk spring morning. The air seemed to crackle with the chill but the birds were singing…spring was on the way. And I was ‘stalking’ the mail carrier. Yelp, had a string of rejections from my favorite publisher and very much feared I would soon receive another.

I was tired of waiting and exhausted by the lack of encouragement missing in form rejections. I expected practice to make perfect. That’s what I’d been taught. What I passed on. What I still believed. I had been studying and practicing the craft of writing for three years…surely I had made progress. So I tried to focus on the joyous songs of the birds as I approached the highway.

And the long awaited envelope was in the mailbox. Finally! I dreaded what I might find inside, but unable to wait, I stood at the end of the driveway and ripped the envelope open. Another R…

I couldn’t allow my disappointment to show, the neighbors might see. Even at a distance they could see if I stomped my foot or hear if I yelled in frustration. But they couldn’t see the tears that filled my eyes as I forced my feet back along the drive. Nor could they hear the silent pray I sent winging heaven ward. “I’ve tried. Really tried. Dear God, please send me a sign to show I’m not wasting my time in vain.”

I stumbled on a gravel and opened my eyes to watch were I was going…and then I saw it. In the sunlight it sparkled bright as an icicle. Yet even with the crisp mornings, I knew it wasn’t ice. But it was silver and sparkling like a gem. How I missed the pen when I started down the drive, I’ll never know. I would guess it was because I was staring at the mailbox, my goal, and not paying attention to the steps I needed to take to get there.

Isn’t that true with many of the things we do in life? We forget the process…the baby steps.  I picked up that silver pen, read the publisher’s name printed on the side, and started trembling. My dream publisher…and not one in my life could have dropped that pen. It was a sign. It had to be. At least two vehicles had driven up and down that drive and not crushed the pen. How could I cave in after a few short years of trying to sell to this publisher?

I never expect to be one of the ‘big girls’ but I want to write stories.  I still have that shinny pen. I pulled it out today. It’s a new year, with renewed hopes and who knows; perhaps drafting my outline in ink from that pen will bring me luck.  Or perhaps the real lesson is that we should never give up hope.

Happy January to you all and here’s wishing you a very successful year!

 

 

Suppose You Write a Book...

...And what?

Why do we tell stories? For me, this activity became a lifelong occupation from the age of three. One night, I woke from a nightmare that, to this day, fills me with dread and a feeling of sick emptiness. I crawled into my parents' bed for safety. I had no words for the terrible dream or the terror I felt. 

Instead, I told a story to my wakeful father about the house I wanted to live in when I grew up. My father was a carpenter, so it was possible to believe he would build the house for me. Concentrating on a future possibility took me away from a present danger.  

From that night on, I found great comfort in using my imagination to tell stories about an alternative reality. I spent long hours alone, content to fill my thoughts with the people and events I created, and 'rewriting' the endings of movies I had seen. During my teenage years, I added drawing to my work box of tools but the stories still took place in my head. 

Not long after this, my first year in high school, I moved to another state. I made two friends in my new high school, both of whom had a similar story-telling penchant. We told each other stories, interactive between the three of us, exchanging ideas and characters, building worlds around make-believe situations. In my second year in high school, back in California, I continued this collaborative effort with other friends and again during my early college years. 

In college, my first choice of a major was art but, finally, writing emerged as my true avocation. Once the decision was made, I entered a phase of my education that was so incredibly rich and textured, I have continued learning ever since. Fortunately, writing is an art form that demands constant discovery. 

But why do I write? One answer is clear: not for the money!  

Our ancestors told stories to explain the mysteries of the

environment, for comfort, for entertainment during the long dark, winter nights. Our own reasons for story-telling are similar. In antiquity, knowledge of the forces of the universe were explained by the imagined existence of magic and the supernatural. How is that different from our own society's love affair with Dracula, Terminators, Angels and the Once Upon a Times of 21st Century entertainment? 

What was formalized by Aristotle and Euripides is our premier source of coming to terms with a universe we understand only marginally better than our cave-dwelling progenitors. The depth and breadth of human imagination, and the drive to express it, cannot be contained, no matter how frequently a story is told. Every one of us has our own, individual interpretation of events. If our telling strikes a chord with others, we have succeeded in expressing a basic human truth and kept the terrors of dreams at bay.