So How Did I Start Writing?

That was how writing a book was for me.

I’ve always loved reading, and after we started homeschooling, I really developed a love for writing, but becoming an author wasn’t my dream. Writing a book was absolutely not something an ordinary person like me could do.

But when I was fourteen I started to play with the idea of writing a really long story (I didn’t call it a book since that idea was way too big and serious) and on an impulse I decided to give it a try. Grabbing a notebook and pencil, I curled up on my sister’s bed and started writing. There was a rush of inspiration. The pages piled up. I was thrilled.

Until the crash came. At the end of the week I looked back at what I had written and was so disappointed that I stuffed the notebook away where no one could see it.

Six months later, I was back at it. This time I was sure I would succeed. I had about an hour’s worth of research under my belt, and my creativity felt ready to burst. I wrote pages and pages before my sister Kailey caught me writing and demanded to read it (keeping secrets is impossible when you share a room).

I let her read, and then I held my breath and waited, sneaking glances at her face as she read. Her expression was not very encouraging.

“Well, how was it?” I asked when she finished and handed it back to me. Inwardly, I was wondering why she hadn’t laughed more. What I had written was supposed to be funny.

“Good,” she said a little weakly, then paused. “But why on earth did the boy decide to play a prank by tying his jacket around the milk cow’s head?”

I looked back at my story and thought, Why, indeed? It had seemed funny at the time, but suddenly the sparkle was gone and I realized that what I had written was yet another failure.

I tried to fix my work, was frustrated with the results, and finally piled all my drafts on a shelf in the closet and vowed that never, never again was I going to try to write another story. I just wasn’t that smart.

But what happened a year later? I was sitting on my bed on a rainy day, feeling bored, and on a whim I pulled out a notebook and started writing based off nothing more than a vague idea about a girl and a broken wagon. And do you know what? Within just a few months, I had finished writing a book and I was ready to plunge into the next one.

I have no intentions of ever letting anyone read that first book, but it launched my writing forward and convinced me that I did have all the capabilities necessary to write a book if I would only put them to work. And so, in the years leading up to when I graduated from high school and afterward, I learned all I could about writing. Kailey continued to critique my work, bringing me back to earth when I needed it, but also encouraging me, and, best of all, laughing when my humor was actually passable. Being an author wasn’t what I had dreamed of as a child, but now I think that writing is a perfect fit for my lifestyle and I can’t imagine living without it. God always has a perfect plan, even when it isn’t what we initially planned.

And the moral for you? Maybe that big, scary dream of yours isn’t so “big and scary” after all. Maybe if you take just one tiny step forward at a time, you’ll be doing exactly what God wants you to do. And maybe His plan is even bigger than anything you could have imagined.