Once upon a time… I’ve never actually started a story with those words, not outside the ones in my head. In the real world, the world living on a computer screen and scraps of paper in my car’s glove box, most of my stories start mid-action. “Here I am!” my character’s say. “THIS IS GONNA BE A FUN RIDE!”
Sometimes, that is the honest truth. Others, it’s a lie, lie, lie… But does it matter? No. For I have written and everything is right in the world–for that one moment.
I started writing a long time a go. But not seriously. I refused to take myself seriously–because I knew (deep down) I wasn’t good enough. The little voices I’d allowed to crawl into my head ate at my confidence like a necrotizing fasciitis. And I believed them.
Until I didn’t.
Until I decided to ignore them and to keep trying anyway.
It took awhile to get there.
And life kept happening around me.
I’d say, “One day, I’ll write.” or “One day, I’ll be a writer.”
The push kept pushing–but the fear was more than I could manage for a long time. With a million and one, distractions along the way…
I “one day’d” myself to death….
But then I took a chance and I stopped saying “one day.” Maybe I didn’t start with, Once upon a time, but I tapped out letter after letter, word after word–IGNORING–the acid voice in my brain that says things like, “Well, aren’t you trendy?” or “You know someone else tried that already. What makes you so special?”
I DID IT ANYWAY!
And I sent it out via the magically world of the internet–and someone said yes.
I don’t know what “making it” looks like to you–but last night was pretty spectacular. And, the voices were quiet.
The voices ARE quiet.
Because–
It’s not always a fairy tale, but what’s so bad about that? Who wants a fairy tale when you can make new friends who lift you up as you try to lift them up, too? Not me.
“Once upon a time, there was a woman who always thought she couldn’t. But then, one day, she did.”
The End
(visit: Madeinlawriters.com for more information about Volumes 1 & 2 of the Made in L.A. Anthology.)
Word Junkie 