Flashback

So, I used to keep a blog on MySpace before this. I was looking at it, and discovered my first entry from when I decided to start writing for publication. Thought I would post it for you all 🙂

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December 1, 2008

This summer, my mom and I rummaged through all of our old stuff in the basement, since we were moving and had to decide what to keep and what to throw away. Looking through papers from elementary school, I came across one of interest. It was a game we played in third grade where each week, the teacher selected one student, and everyone else in the class had to write something nice about them and give it to them. I came across the papers handed to me by my classmates and discovered a common theme amongst the comments. Nearly everyone wrote something along the lines of “I love your stories” or “you’re going to be a great author someday.” I nearly cried when reading them, because it brought back a dream that as a college student, I’d forgotten a while back. I realized that somewhere along the road from third grade to that summer before my junior year of college, I’d lost track of my passion for writing and how it was something I wanted to do with my life. Now don’t get me wrong, I never stopped writing. But figuring that wanting to be an author was like saying I wanted to be a movie star or a famous musician, I pushed it to the back of my mind.

I stared at my LSAT practice book wondering what I was doing. I had no interest in law, so why was I preparing for law school? Finding no answer, I realized that some serious rethinking was in order. Yes, I was on the right track for law school, and would most likely be accepted into one. But it wasn’t what I wanted to do with my life, and it wasn’t what would make me happy. Writing is what I love; writing is what I always have loved. I have so many ideas for novels, yet this whole time I’d been suffocating them with a major I had no interest in and goals that wouldn’t make me happy.

Closing the LSAT practice book, I called my tutor and told him I would no longer be taking practice tests. Relief rushed through my veins immediately afterward. I want to write, and I’ll never succeed if I don’t try. This is my dream, and I’m going to go for it. So all this semester (when I haven’t been focusing on homework) I’ve been writing down my story ideas. Currently, I have two main ones to turn into novels. I’m leaning towards one of them, but will decide for sure which one to write during winter break. Then I’m going to start writing, and I’m so excited for winter break when I won’t have to worry about tests and papers and be able to focus on the book. (Of course winter break will eventually end, but at least it gives me a good month to focus on writing before the start of the spring semester.)

So I’ve created this page to blog about the road to my dream. I know it’s a hard road, but I’m going to try to follow it and do what I truly love. To quote Robert Frost:

“Two roads diverged in a wood
And I took the one less traveled by
And that has made all the difference.”