On my eighth or ninth birthday, I–for some reason–was given a stack of lined paper and a little green binder. Not knowing what else to do with that, I decided to draw comics.
A few days later, I had a single drawing of a barely recognizable dog coupled with several pages of writing. I ditched the drawing, but kept the writing and for the next two years I wrote on a continuous story, I called HAPPY DOGS. It was far from good writing, but I loved doing it. My inner writer had been woken.
People kept discouraging me. Telling me I’d never finish a novel-length manuscript and thus never get published. For a good twenty years, I believed them. I quit writing more often than one changes underwear, proving the nay-sayers right over and over again.
But the dream never died and in November 2014 I participated in NaNoWriMo and wrote the most beautiful two words on the 29th at the bottom of a very messy first draft.
As of today, I am still unpublished, but now I am confident that I can get there as long as I follow my dream . This time, I’m not quitting, no matter what anyone says. I’ve already proven them wrong once, I’ll just have to do that again.
EXPLOITS IN WRITING 