The Past Coming Back to Haunt Me

Going through my mom's stuff sometimes brings little surprises. As the book lover in the family, I took it upon myself to go through her bookshelves and save what I could from the upcoming garage sale. (No worries, no one else wanted them. Their loss!!!) Space is limited on my personal bookshelves, so I only took hardcovers.

I keep a spreadsheet of all my books, a recent thing as I often end up with multiples because I forget what I have. So I went through every book and recorded the title and author (among other information), discovering that a bunch of the books belonged to me when I was a child. Inside one of them was a folded up piece of lined notebook paper that contained what appears to be a short story I wrote, complete with pictures. I am not sure if there was a first page, but here is the story (reproduced exactly):

     "$20,000!" shouted Judy.
     "Yippee!" said Paul. "Now we each can get a horse!"
     "I'll be right back, Paul. I'm going to tell Mom we're going to buy a horse or two."
     Jack put $10,000 in Judy's place and took $10,000. Just then Judy came.
     "We can go!"

     As they arrived, men brought in the ponies. Next came the horses.
     The first one was a skinny little animal. She had an uncut mane and tail. Her winter coat was falling off and there were large patches of her summer coat showing. Her hooves were not cut. She was a racing thoroughbred.

     "$5.00!" shouted the horse-meat man.
     Judy looked at the horse and quickly shouted, "$10,00!"
     (over)
     "Going, going, GONE! Sold to the young lady with $10.00!"
     "Call her Old Bones!" said Paul. "That's what she is! A sack of bones!"

     A year later Judy entered a race. She won. Her horse was the fastest in the city. Judy named her "Windy".

I wondered what finding this meant, besides the obvious enthusiasm for exclamation points I had as a child. I am wrapping up my first novel (although every time I read it I find something to change so I may never finish) and suffering from that fairly common writer sickness known in some circles as isuck syndrome. Other fairly huge things are also going on in my life which aren't helping to alleviate the symptoms of isuck.

So when I found this, I couldn't help but try and attach some significance to it. Honestly, the story is pretty pitiful, but I was only 9 or 10 at the time so I can't beat myself up too badly. So maybe it was a gentle reminder (maybe from Mom!) not to give up on as dream I've had since I was old enough to read.

This past Monday evening I was lucky enough to get a seat at an appearance by Dennis Lehane (more on this next post). One of the things he said was that in his opinion you needed to put in your time as a writer, 10 years between first picking that pen. I smiled to myself when he said that because I had proof I'd put in the time, and then some.

My conclusion: don't give up on your dream.

Lucky for me my dream wasn't to become an artist.