A North Dakota Farm Girl
for Pieces of You

2003-04-16 - 11:16 a.m.

This entry, written for Pieces of You, was inspired by Wyndspirit Dreams, this essay in particular.

I am not a talented writer. Those of you who read me regularly can attest to that. But I, too, had dreams of one day becoming an author. I wanted to write books. Books that people would read over and over again. Books with stories that people would remember years after having read them. But I don�t have the talent. I lack the creativity, the persistence, the courage.

But I have kept the stories I have written. From the children's stories illustrated by the boy next door to my science fiction and steamy romance short stories. Most of these remain unread by anyone other than myself. And I keep them in a battered black binder.

As a kid, I always thought I could do whatever I wanted to do when I grew up. All that I had to do was pick something, and that is what I would be. I loved to write. When other kids got in trouble their parents would take away their telephone and television privileges. When I got in trouble, my parents took away my reading and writing privileges. I could write for hours about anything and everything that came into my mind. But I never learned to write long stories. Reading my writing, one might question the length of my attention span. To this day, the longest story I've ever written is thirteen pages long. This story started out science fiction, turned into a romance, evolved into a fantasy story, and culminated on page thirteen by all the main characters being eaten by a dragon as I grew bored.

I no longer write stories. Who has time in this busy world? But every once in a while, when I'm searching for something or cleaning my room, I come across the battered black binder. And I pull it out. And I read. As I read the stories I wrote so long ago, I remember what was going on in my head. There was so much more that I never learned to translate to the page. Remembering the images makes those stories wonderful to me and I will keep them forever. A reminder of something I could never be.