Chasing The Dream

I can't believe we are halfway through the 12 X 12 in 2012 challenge.  I have five picture book manuscripts completed and almost finished with the sixth.  It's been all about chasing a dream of mine that began over 40 years ago.

Poetry has lived in my head since I was eight years old and by the time I was in fourth grade I had a dream of becoming a writer.  I chased that dream for years; first filling notebooks with virgin efforts at poetry, then essays about whatever struck my interest and even a stint at being editor-in-chief of my high school paper.  No one knew of my passion for writing and I focused on that dream to the exclusion of many other things.

Yet dreams are sometimes hard to catch and when I was in my twenties I allowed other people's opinions to darken my visions of becoming a writer.  I tried to silence the voices in my head for twenty years and thought I would be content to just read the works of others.  But dreams are funny things.  They don't die easily, so when the timing was right my voices began invading my dreams again and I returned to my writer roots once more.



Maybe there was a reason for the silence.  Maybe I needed time to mature as a writer...time to discover this wonderful writing community I'm so proud to be a part of...time to be able to participate in Julie Hedlund's wonderful 12 X 12 in 2012 Halfway There Blog Party ( http://www.juliehedlund.com/2012/06/25/were-halfway-there/ ) and celebrate a milestone in my new writing career.  And maybe it's not about getting the picture perfect ending, but about the journey through the story itself.  About doing whatever it takes to chase that dream...