Pursuing the Dream

On a cool December evening, my parents happened to stop by while I was writing. I only wrote for my own enjoyment, but happened to read them the first chapter of a story I was in the process of creating. They both had very different reactions. My mom wasn’t quite as impressed as my dad. Anyway, after they left I shelved that story and went on with life as ‘boring’ normal as it was.

About four months later I was at my parents’ house and my dad showed me something that he had been working on. A book. He had been inspired by my writing and went home and started working on one of his own. I was so impressed. I helped him out with some of the editing process and he was ready to send it off. I told him not to hold his breath. The process of getting a book published was a long and tedious affair. I’d always heard that ‘unknown’ authors rarely get published unless they know someone who knows someone.

Two weeks later my father called me and said his work was being published. He couldn’t see me over the phone, which I was grateful for, because my mouth dropped to the floor and my mind went to mush. I couldn’t believe it! At eighty years of age, my father was undertaking a new adventure as an author, and here I had written for more than twenty years and didn’t do anything with it. I felt like the man in the bible who had ‘hidden’ his talents.

“That’s it!” I thought. After years of reading all the “How-to” books of writing and then jotting notes and talking myself out of it, and back in to it, and then out of it again, my father was getting published.

So with renewed determination, I set my fears and insecurities aside and I began writing – Really Writing! I was focused on my goal! “I am going to be a published author,” I repeated to myself daily. I had to start moving forward, towards my goal. Day after day, month after month, I gave my all. I’d change a sentence fifty times before I was happy with it. Then change it again if the next sentence didn’t sound right. I edited and re-edited, and edited it some more. It was going to be perfect.

I was on my way – writing my first novel.

~ L ~

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