Blog 5

Okay Dr. Chandler here is my narrative rough draft.. not too sure if it's what you're looking for I just sort of sat down and this is what came out...

It only takes a single idea to change a life. One firefly in the night of your mind to illuminate a new path. A path that can bring you into the darkest depth of your mind where ideas linger on limbs waiting to be picked like a ripe apple. I ignored that path for many years, mainly because what writing was linked to in my mind and what I was taught writing was in school. When you are younger writing is strictly how you write, whether it be in cursive or print, and your grammar along with spelling. I was good at none of that so writing was something I did only if required to do so. Then it became evident that technology was intimately twined with writing and it had been so for the past years but I had not seen this. Again because of the stigma writing held in my mind. But when that stigma was left in the dirt and I took the path illuminated I found that there were more than ideas lingering in my mind. My definition of writing was in fact rewritten and someone who hated writing became one who relied on writing. It has now become something that drives me to wake up in the morning, something that makes all the misspellings worth making, something that has changed my life.



As a dyslexic child I could not read and had a hard time writing. Writing also going hand and had with proper spelling. So I struggled and I struggled till third grade because no one knew I had a problem. All my teachers before had assumed I could read because when they would send books home for me to read to my parents my mother would always read them to me first. She would nicely point to each word as she spoke and I would carefully memorize each word as she pointed to it. So when I would return to school with the book I could “read” it perfectly to the teacher. And so it went till the end of second grade when my teacher Ms. Adams suggested that I be tested by the Child Study Teams because she had seen that I was struggling with reading and had difficulty spelling. After I took the test I was classified as a dyslexic. Which meant starting in the fall I would be in “special” reading classes. These classes focused on bringing my low reading level up to third grade standards along with working on my spelling and correcting my writing habits. I found out that the way I wrote the letter R was wrong, that it should face the right not the left, then again I am sure I knew this before but no one ever bothered to fix it. It was in these classes that I started to read and to read for real. It was also in these classes that I would stay till fifth grade.


When the middle of my fifth grade year came along I was deemed “normal” enough to go into the regular English classes with my friends. I had writing assignments and picture prompts to do. I remember handing in my first picture prompt to my teacher, Mrs. Cameron, very happy with it. I also remember getting it back and being very ashamed of the low grade written in red and the comment to always check my spelling. The funny part was I had checked my spelling and all the words had looked fine to me. So I learned in this class that writing was correct spelling and spelling always counted. No matter how many times I would ask the answer would be the same spelling would count and I grew to hate that phrase with a fiery passion. I also learned how to cheat in this class because of our vocabulary tests where guess what… spelling counted. So I developed a very clever method of copying the words from the book onto a piece of paper with the correct spelling and I would keep that in my desk to copy from. But I still hated writing. I hated how much effort I put into it and how much red would always end up on my paper. I hated how no matter what I did my writing was never up to par. I hated writing.


That hate for writing stayed with me in sixth and seventh grade. It might have even increased because I stumbled upon that thing called technology. Now I thought spell check would be my savior. What better then something that could correct my spelling errors! Too bad I could never pick the right word. Granted it was spelled right it was just the incorrect word. Sixth and seventh grade seemed to be years filled with lots of writing. Lots and lots of writing. It was also filled with frustration because I could not write and I hated that. So I needed to find some way to escape a world where spelling always counted and spell check never worked for me. I found that escape in books. Not just any old genre of books but Fantasy books. I loved the elves and the magic. I loved the fact that it let me get away from writing. The spelling was always perfect and that perfection just added to the greatness and wonder that was a books.


Perhaps this is where my redemption story begins or at least the seed is planted. As I sat in the Woodglen Middle School library one lunch period reading I paused for whatever reason and looked around at all the hundreds of books and it hit me. Hit me square in the face like base ball bat. All of these books had been written by people. It made me pause and take a mental staggering step toward that illuminated path that whispered of promise. Then I took five mental steps away because I did not want to acknowledge that writing could be fun. No I was not ready for that yet. But I was ready to think upon the fact that writing to someone else was not what writing was to me. Because if that was the case then everyone would avoid it like the plague. So there must be a population of people out there who enjoyed this thing called writing. If not then surely there would not be so many books in this library. There must be people out there who really honestly loved to write. A baffling thought really because of how I felt about it and I was a wee bit jealous because I had no clue what made them like it. Then again their spelling was perfect unlike mine. Too bad I did not know that there are editors who read books to correct grammar and fix spelling. Perhaps if I had known that then I would have thrown myself with abandon at the idea of writing for fun. Instead I finished out my seventh grade career still hating this dreadful thing called writing but totally loving that others could write these books I read. These books that enchanted me. These books that made me want to take that path into the darkest depths of my mind to pick those apples of ideas that would make me write.


But I shied away for just a little longer. After all it was summer vacation I had the whole summer at the beach to look forward too. The amazing library system with so many books calling for my attention and the best part was I did not have to write. I could relax. There would be plenty of writing in eighth grade after all it was the year that was supposed to prep me for high school. So I thought I could get away without writing all vacation. When the white canvas of summer was splayed out before me in June I was quite content to paint it with everything other then writing. But that crimson splash of literary intervention threw itself right across my beautiful summer. It was that intervention that sent me sprinting down that path the fire fly illuminated.


It is truly funny sometimes how such small things can create such huge shockwaves. How the fact that my older brother, Spencer, drawing a map could turn me into an author. But I get ahead of myself with the whole author part that is still a few years away from this summer. So I will start where this redemption story deserves to start. It starts with a simple map. A map that Spencer was drawing for his book he said he was going to write. The ink on the paper painted a land that looked so amazing to me with a chain of mountains in the south that resembled a dragon’s maw and islands to the north that bridged two lands together. When Spencer started to tell me about his book and what was going to happen I was hooked. I wanted to write one of my own. So I took a lilac notebook from the art draw and proclaimed I was going to write a book. I put pencil to paper and wrote. Spelling was not an issue I told myself because no one would ever read this. I was writing it for me and only me. Oh and to prove to Spencer and my younger brother, Hunter, that I could write a book too. To prove to myself that I could write a book.


It was relaxing as I started to spin a story. I sat in the rocking chair in front of the window so I could hear the seagulls making their annoying call and feel the warm breeze come through the screen. I was in heaven. Between the story that I was writing and the fact that no one but me would read it and the ideas that hung on limbs begging for me to pick them and write them in the notebook I was falling in love with writing. It was not a nice cliché romance falling in love. It was a hard core head over heels sort of falling in love. It was fast and it was passionate. It was sloppy and it was forceful. I was trying to make up for all those years I had shied away from this delightful path. But it would not happen in just one day. I knew that this was going to be nothing short of an addiction.


Like all addictions it consumed my every thought and every moment. When I was not writing I was thinking of the next scene I would write or what new characters I could put in. I was calculating the outcome and writing outlines. Even when school started I continued and it seemed that the pain that writing used to be was gone. I did not mind writing essays for school because I knew that if I got frustrated I could always slip into my book whenever I wanted. Writing became medication for me. If I had a bad day I would write. If I had a good day I did not want to end I would write. Every spare moment I wrote. I practically slept with that purple notebook. Then an exciting mile marker day came. I finished writing in that light purple notebook. Stopping was not in the equation though. I knew I must continue. My characters demanded it of me. Leaving the rest of their story untold would be a criminal offense especially since I was just getting to the good part.


When I started to write in my green notebook it was summer again. Except this year I was on my way towards high school. A huge change was coming and here I was a shiny new car racing full speed toward a brick wall. A collision was bound to happen, in fact it was inevitable. But I did not know if that collision would be between my writing and school work. Or school and social life. Or any other of the thousand and one options. It was also then that I set myself a goal. I would be published before I graduate high school. It was scary at first because that meant other people would have to read my work. Now that was a scary thought because it brought me back to the days when spelling counted and I did not want to face that again. But my writing had become so important in my life. It was my life. I began to draw in upon myself and into my writing. I stopped talking to friends who would laugh at me when I told them I was going to get published. But I should probably offer them some thanks because they made me want to get published. I wanted to prove them wrong. I wanted to prove anyone who had ever said my writing was bad because I could not spell or use proper grammar. I was going to prove them all wrong.


Everywhere I went I carried my notebooks. It was a shame really that I had not bothered to make that connection with technology and writing. Perhaps if I had noticed that oh so intimate bonding of the two my first book published would have been the first book in my series. But no silly me I was still going about it the old fashioned way. I might as well have just been typing it up in a typewriter for all the good those inked up pages would do. Somewhere between my euphoria of loving writing and my goal to get published I over looked computers; the one thing that makes publishing possible now a days. I have no clue how I could have over looked this technological link because quite frankly it is quite a huge elephant of an obtrusion in writing. I am not quite sure when I realized that a manuscript had to be typed but when I did I diligently sat down and started typing from my notebooks. I also realized that what was in my notebooks was utter rubbish. I had come so far from that summer after seventh grade. I had learned to show things instead of telling them. And I also found that typing out my book was a daunting task so I gave it up and went back to my notebooks. I like the old fashion pen and paper approach. So what if I would be the only one to ever read it. That was good enough for me. At least that is what I told myself. Yet there was still this burning desire to get published before I graduate high school and show everyone who doubted me that I could.


Now the beginning of senior year rolled around and I was still writing in my book in notebooks, although I had finished the first book and was well into the second book of my series. But I only had about fifty pages of typed story. The only other typed material was a plethora of short stories. Very discouraging. Yet a bit motivating at the same time. My time to get published was dripping away into dry sand never to be retrieved. So what was I to do? I sat at the computer and started to type. I had come to terms with the fact that technology and writing were lovers just as writing and I were. So I started my romance with technology. It was everything my discovery for the love of writing was not. It was gentle and kind and easy to fall into. I was amazed by everything from the fact that I could edit and delete scenes without wasting pages in my notebook. What a revolutionary idea? How had I not stumbled upon this sooner? It was amazing and I felt dumb for never seeing this before because it was so much easier to just sit and open a vein at the keyboard then to do so with ink.


Typing the ideas that I plucked from my mind was so easy. It was so easy that I found myself expanding on a short story and twenty five pages later it was not such a short story. But I kept writing and writing. Then it happened. I realized I wanted to get this shabby novel of mine published. That idea set the flames of determination leaping within me. My affair with writing was rekindled in full as I wrote more then I had since that first summer and slowly my novel grew and I liked it. Although after seven turns of editing I had a perfect jewel of a story so I sent it out to be published and crossed my finger that something would happen fast in the next five months. Seven rejections came in the mail and I was starting to rethink my whole writing career idea. Because clearly my writing was not all that I thought it was. But it only took one phone call to change that and send my novel on a mad dash to the finish line. A mad dash through editing to layout to cover design to print. June sixth my book was officially on Amazon.com for sale. June sixteenth I graduated knowing that I had proven everyone who had ever laughed at me for writing wrong. I graduated Voorhees High School as a published author.


But I did not stop there after all I had bought a lap top so my summer could be filled with typing. No more of that filling of the notebooks shenanigans. I was thoroughly in love with technology and what it could do for my writing. So I turned my eyes back to my series and realized that my early writing was indeed horrible but that it was necessary. As was every other experience related to writing. Every story has to start somewhere. Mine started with a little girl who could not read and the chapter I just finished of my life told of a young woman finishing the first draft of the first book in her series. That will not be the last chapter because I have so many ideas I need to pluck from my mind and write.


As I look back even though I would not change a single moment of the path I trod to get to this point with my writing I cannot help but wonder if it was different how it all would be now? Perhaps if I had been able to read and write at a young age I would be the prodigy child getting published in high school. And not the amazing rags to riches kind of story that I am. As I think on that I can say that I would most certainly be one of those cocky people who just brag on about their writing. I would not be the shy writer that I am now. Yes I am proud of myself for getting published and when I have to define myself writing always comes into play because it defines me and it is a pretty big part of my life. But I am not so cocky as to go around throwing it out for all to see. Plus I am still shy about my writing I know that I have a lot that I need to learn and improve on. Which is why people rarely see any of my writing that I have not edited a dozen times. Call me a perfectionist but when it comes to my books I am. I do not want some shoddy book being published which then defines me as an author. I want only perfection published. So when people start to know my name as an author they will speak my name with reverence at the fact that I have writing talent.


This path that I wander down in the darkest depths of my mind is leading me to something great. But it has also seen me through things that are equally as great. It seems that my whole writing career has come from me continuously leaping over near impossible obstacles. I know given the chance to leap those obstacles again I would, except perhaps with a little more spring in my step. One idea can change a life because that idea could be the beginning of a book. And it does not matter how you look at it but writing changes your life weather you read it or write it. Writing changes everything with a few well chosen eloquent words.