136 Pages: The Book I Buried

verse of the day: "And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts." Galatians 5:24

When I was 12 years old, I decided that I wanted to start writing my first auto biography...We'd just learned about it in class and I wanted to see how far I could go...I was about 20 pages in when I realized just how boring my life was...after all... I was still just a kid, who had never traveled outside of Florida and could only talk about her misadventures in school... so I did. I talked about my first day of school in finite details to the very clothes I wore that day, I talked about being in preschool and the day that one of my playmates threw sand in my hair, I talked about my meanest preschool teacher who made me stand in a corner for having to use the restroom during nap time, I talked about my first crush and how nice he was to me....By the time I was 16, I'd reached 136 pages and decided that I would write as I lived it....it was truly the beginning of something beautiful..... I wrote it all by hand...all 136 pages and I wrote everyday....I sat at my grandmothers kitchen table until midnight....writing my heart away because I was young, and hungry for what I wanted.

My biggest regret was sharing what I had done with someone close to me who proceeded to tell me that I had not experienced enough to write an autobiography....I knew that....I wanted to write my life as I lived it...to continue it....however I was a shy, emotional 16 year old girl who was just told the one thing she was most proud of was a waste of time. The person in question may have felt like they were doing me a favor but they never knew what took place after....at the age of 20, a few years before my big creative break through.....I would get angry in my bedroom, and take out my wrath on what I held most dear.....I remember the ripping of the paper, the tears that bled into the ink and the binder that gave way in my fury... I remember my eyes being sore and not having the strength to tear the cover that I lovingly placed into another folder...always to be remembered.

I can still hear the shredder on that faithful summer, and the pain of instant regret afterwards....Now at 27 I sit and write about the book that could have been...as a warning to young writers everywhere....You MUST have the strength to stand by your work, no matter what....don't allow someone's misguided words give you the poison to murder yours. You will carry it's weight in unpublished work and sleepless nights if you allow it. Keep writing, everyday, and pray, because true writing is not for the faint of heart and you would not have a love so fierce for it if you could not bear the heat of its flame.

Everything you are

Everything you will be

Everything you do

Everything you say

Everything you desire and disdain

Write about it until the very end...and whatever you do, don't stop at page 136. ;)

"For the love of life and literature, stay prayerful, stay positive and write on!"