An autobiography from three minds...

I know the exact moment I realized I had some talent as a writer. I was sitting on the couch after school, enjoying a sandwhich and my daily dose of soap opera dynamics when my brother walked in the door and announced that he heard my poems today. I didn't believe him so he repeated a few lines that I instantly remembered. After a bit of probing he finally told me that Mrs. Strout, my seventh grade teacher and now his, had read them out loud to the entire class! At first I was appalled, those were my intimate thoughts, then I was proud, those were MY intimate thoughts. She was using them as an example of good poetry! It took another few days, and a few bus changes, before I could make my way into the seventh grade classroom to find out what was going on. She laughed when I asked her if I could have my poems back and replied quickly with "These are the best poems I've read in all my years of teaching, I was so proud of you, and there is no way your taking them back - they're mine now." I left with photo copies, the most I could ply from her iron grip. I also left with a smile, 'best poems" she had said. Now who would have thought that was possible? Certainly not me....

You know your good at poems. Why else would you have played that game with your friends? You know the one where they gave you a topic and ten minutes and each time you created a page long poem that not only rhymed, but made sense. You also wouldn't have been able to make so much money selling poems to countless students needing to turn one in for a school project. A little unethical - maybe, a little egotistical - definitely, a little funny when you wrote them knowing you had to make them not as good as usual so they would be believeable - most of the time. You won a number of writing awards, even published a couple of items, but you still can't seem to get beyond that point. You tap your fingers along the edge of the keyboard as you try to imagine how to fill out a scene in the most recent story you've started. Why bother? You know you'll never finish it....

She sat there at the quaint restaraunt table, waiting for her friend to arrive while seated in a chair that was far too uncomfortable to match the cozy setting. She let her mind wander to the next table where a geriatric group of female inmates from the local nursing home were discussing what could only be classified as guilt-free gossip. As the conversation crept deeper and deeper into speculation she suddenly thought of what a great story it would make, even if it weren't true. She began to play out the scenes in her head, piecing the chapters together in the same way a true puzzle pro completes a jigsaw puzzle, starting with the outside and then filling in the middle. Just before her friend walked in she pushed the story out of her head. It was, after all, like all the other story ideas she had, unwritten unless someone else wrote them. And as she let it slip away the fear-of-failure demon that had taken up residence inside her head since childhood....giggled.