It was on one of those days when I was just itching to write something, that ideas began flowing for a book, which would, to my great surprise and anguish, become a nationwide bestseller. How I accomplished such a great feat at seventeen years of age, I still cannot fully explain, but I will tell you why it caused me great anguish.
I began writing when I was in eight grade. Then, I wrote about the things that caught my attention. No one in my house knew; if they did, they said nothing either to encourage or discourage me. I worked with childish delight and ecstasy at finding something I love deeply. My mother is a well-known writer. At the time, she was the author of four truly wonderful books. Three of them are bestsellers (the third book hadn’t stayed on the bestseller list long enough to please Mom). The last book, published seven years before I wrote mine, sold a little more than five hundred thousand copies. My Mom had been noticeably disappointed about the sales figure and as a young child, I thought she was greedy. Five hundred thousand - plus copies of anything sounded like a lot to my ten year old self. She complained severely about not making the New York Times bestseller list, I had not known what that was and why it bothered my Mom so much. Once when she was sober, she said she was having a prolonged case of writer’s block. Writer’s block? “What’s that?” I had asked, but she shooed me away. After a while, she took to locking herself up for four hours every day in a study she pronounced out of bounds to my brother and I. It was the last four hours of the day, by then I was back from school and usually I skulked around, praying for her expression to be bright whenever she emerged. It never was. Mom tried to look happy at other times, I could see the effort, but there was no hiding it from me. I could see beneath the façade. I could see that she was troubled. Dad knew it too.
Like I said earlier, ideas began flowing for a book and I worked on it mostly at night when I was through with supper and homework. I did not tell a soul what I was up to. Not Billy my brother, not Diane my best friend and not even Dad my buddy. After months of work, I completed my book. I called it Ten storeys high. It was a two hundred and twenty-one paged book about two families that lived on the top floor of a ten storey high building. I was excited and nervous. I wanted my Mom’s approval; I wanted her to read it. I read and re-read Ten Storeys high, corrected all the grammatical and typographical errors I could spot and with the only copy of my manuscript in my hand, I knocked nervously on Mom’s study door.
This short story is part one in a four part series. Click to continue reading parts two, three, and four.
I began writing when I was in eight grade. Then, I wrote about the things that caught my attention. No one in my house knew; if they did, they said nothing either to encourage or discourage me. I worked with childish delight and ecstasy at finding something I love deeply. My mother is a well-known writer. At the time, she was the author of four truly wonderful books. Three of them are bestsellers (the third book hadn’t stayed on the bestseller list long enough to please Mom). The last book, published seven years before I wrote mine, sold a little more than five hundred thousand copies. My Mom had been noticeably disappointed about the sales figure and as a young child, I thought she was greedy. Five hundred thousand - plus copies of anything sounded like a lot to my ten year old self. She complained severely about not making the New York Times bestseller list, I had not known what that was and why it bothered my Mom so much. Once when she was sober, she said she was having a prolonged case of writer’s block. Writer’s block? “What’s that?” I had asked, but she shooed me away. After a while, she took to locking herself up for four hours every day in a study she pronounced out of bounds to my brother and I. It was the last four hours of the day, by then I was back from school and usually I skulked around, praying for her expression to be bright whenever she emerged. It never was. Mom tried to look happy at other times, I could see the effort, but there was no hiding it from me. I could see beneath the façade. I could see that she was troubled. Dad knew it too.
Like I said earlier, ideas began flowing for a book and I worked on it mostly at night when I was through with supper and homework. I did not tell a soul what I was up to. Not Billy my brother, not Diane my best friend and not even Dad my buddy. After months of work, I completed my book. I called it Ten storeys high. It was a two hundred and twenty-one paged book about two families that lived on the top floor of a ten storey high building. I was excited and nervous. I wanted my Mom’s approval; I wanted her to read it. I read and re-read Ten Storeys high, corrected all the grammatical and typographical errors I could spot and with the only copy of my manuscript in my hand, I knocked nervously on Mom’s study door.
This short story is part one in a four part series. Click to continue reading parts two, three, and four.
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