A Writer is Born...

My oldest son and I recently attended a Writer’s Workshop together.  We’d never attended one before, so we weren't exactly sure what to expect.  It turned out to be a small gathering in a local library.  During the workshop, we were asked to write a few things, one of which being what our expectations for our writing were.  Was it for fame?  Was it for fortune?  Why do we write?  The following is what I came up with.  I'm not sure I stayed on topic, but it’s what I felt!  Keep writing everyone!

A Writer Is Born

He grew up on a farm in a small insignificant town that would be lost on any map.  His life felt misplaced from the beginning—constantly caught up in expectations that were not his own—there was no space for him to have dreams of his own.  He was always tied down with chores and what was expected of him.  With no stars to reach for, there were few opportunities for him to prove himself.  

He read books and watched movies.  He listened to people talk but kept quiet—because that’s how he was raised to behave.  Soon, he was eighteen.  One day, after suffering another day of feeling as if he didn’t reach what was expected of him, he felt lost, and hopeless.  Somewhere inside those tears, lighting struck.  A story—a character—a plot—it was all laid out in his mind.  Inspiration from something he read, or seen, or heard?  Maybe, but it felt real.  It felt original.  A beginning, middle and end were all there.  He didn’t know where it came from, but it meant something to him.  It was something to reach for.  It was his.

Outside of school essays and short stories in a high school creative writing class, the task was nothing he had ever attempted.  He grabbed some sheets of paper and a pen and he began the harrowing task of writing the story down.  The ink scratched across the page, and the story was scribbling to life.  Suddenly, the idea inside his mind grew to be a much larger story on the page—it was a whole world.  As the world grew, he grew a voice—one that would put his misplaced life on hold, at least for a little while.  He wrote and wrote and wrote, blacking out the world with his ink.  He felt free in the words he wrote.

Finally, he had finished the story.  Now, what to do?  As nerve racking as it was, he needed to share his work with others—he needed to show his value, and why he had scathed off from what was expected of him.  There were some who said the story needed work, and there were still others who said it was good, but no one saw what the freedom he saw in those words.  How could he make them see it?  How could he introduce them to the world he had created the same way he had been introduced?  How else, but to write another story?  Learn from what he had heard.  Would anyone continue to read?  After careful consideration, he realized it didn’t matter to him.  The writer had found the joy he was looking for.  He had found his freedom, and he wasn’t going to let it go no matter the nay-sayers.  A writer was born, and he was ready to grow.