She clicks on the link and reads the blog post. It gushes
about how another writer shows promise, is going places. No one gushes about
her work that way. No one even notices when she publishes something. Well,
except that one lonely cheerleader who tells her that her writing doesn’t suck.
She thinks someone paid that one cheerleader off.
She realizes that she is nothing special. Her work is
mediocre and not likely to stand out in the crowd. And it is a crowd. Every one
of her classmates turned from peer to competition as soon as the degree was
conferred.
Chin up, people tell her. Nose to the grindstone. Keep
hacking away and one day you’ll see some fruits from all that labor.
She does. She sees nothing. She is patient. She writes,
submits, and writes more but nothing. No rejection but no acceptance either.
She feels that she is yelling into a void. Making any type of progress seems
like a Sisyphean task.
Perhaps her passion lies elsewhere. She loves stories, loves
telling them. But there is something that she loves more, something that
pervades her very being. A passion that has burned bright since her earliest
memories.
History.
American, British, European, and Scandinavian history. And
not just history but the stories that history tells. The myths, legends,
superstitions, and folklore. How these
stories sprang from every-day events and were exaggerated into folklore, and
then blown up into myth. From fireside
tales of the psycho with a hook coming to get the hapless campers, to internet-born
Slenderman, to Irish Halloween origin tales of Stingy Jack, they all fascinate
her.
She’s on the wrong path. That is why the blog post
discouraged her. She sees her path now. It’s a little to the left of the one
she’s on.
She takes a step to the left.
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