Out of the Blue

Many writers have stories about how they knew they wanted to
be a writer when they were young. They say they had grown up around writing and
it was what they had always done. I didn’t have that. In fact, I was well into
my 20s before I knew what it was I wanted to do as a profession. But as I look
back in my past, I see shadows of the passion I would follow.

The thing about dreams is that they are rarely seen by
others until they are pursued. Many times, people close to you may think that
the dream appeared out of the blue. No! It appeared out of the ground, growing
from seeds. When you meet someone for this first time, do you believe that
person just appeared, or had he or she been living in this world apart from
your knowledge? 

Things exist though we are not aware of them. So it is with
dreams. They simmer in people until they can no longer hold them in. Sometimes
it bubbles out when you are young, other times when you are older; and sadly,
some people can hold their dream in until it is deprived of all life, and they
pass on never revealing it. 

I can remember in my teens writing, not novels or stories,
but thoughts, feelings, and music. I felt something inside of me needed to get
out and this was the only way it could escape. Although I was unsatisfied, it
was all I had, until I went to college, where I took my first writing course –
screenwriting. I loved the class.

Between graduating college and beginning law school, which I quit, I tried
writing a novel. The task seemed too daunting. I knew the story I wanted to
tell, but didn’t know how to tell it. Without getting into my educational
history, once I learned how to tell the story, it was like the releasing of
something inside. All those years I wanted to say something, but didn’t have
the tools to say it. And now that I have the tools, I don’t want to “shut-up.”