Guest Post: "The Path" by Sam Shelton
“What's the point of that?”
“You're nowhere good enough to even think
about that.”
“You'll never amount to anything.”
These are a few of the things I've heard
personally. Not only from the author standpoint, but with life in general,
there are always a few who try to drag you down. My advice: don't listen.
I've always admired the great authors such as
Edgar Allan Poe and William Shakespeare. There's an essence about their work
that is far more than simple words on paper. There's a certain beauty, a kind
of magic, that flows with each sentence. My personal goal is to one day write
something of remote comparison in elegance.
I'm not sure when it was that I realized I
enjoyed writing. Possibly my fondest memory is from middle school when I was in
my 7th grade year. The reading teacher held up 5 different photos and
instructed us to pick one to write a story about. I knew which one to write
about as soon as I saw it. A photo of a man, bald headed, craziness filling his
eyes, glaring at a lump on the floor and ready to swing a chair at it. They say
a picture is worth a thousand words. That picture could tell a million stories
all on its own.
Our story had to be a minimum of three pages.
Someone asked the teacher if we could write more than three pages, as it might
not be enough. I wasn't even worried about the length at the time. I thought it
would be hard enough to reach the three page minimum. Getting home from school
that day, I grabbed a notebook, sat down in my yard, and began writing. ‘How
long did she say it could be?’ I wondered, realizing I had finished writing a
little over 13 pages.
At that moment, I was actually surprised with
myself. The next day at school, I saw my language arts teacher from the
previous year. Passing by each other, she noticed me and asked loudly, “Are you
still writing? You should be! Don't ever stop writing!” Already feeling as
though I had just successfully climbed the highest mountain by having written
ten extra pages, her words seemed to get stamped into my brain. Those events
gave me an interest in writing, and had me thinking “what if?”
High school presented several obstacles -
changes as well as naysayers. They seemed to be in endless supply, and led to
me nearly abandon the idea of someday being a writer. I began doubting
everything I wrote, even my algebra homework, as silly as that sounds.
Now, in my 30s, I have one book published -
believe me, there's no better feeling than printing out a 100+ page rough draft
for editing - and more already in the works. Whatever your dream is, always
work toward it, no matter what others might say to change your mind. Where there
is a will, one can always find a way! It might take some time to reach your
dreams, and there will be some failures along the way. But when you do, words
cannot express how great it feels.
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