Remember when you were a little kid, and everything you wanted to do was at your fingertips? Your parents were ready to listen to anything you had to say, and you were able to come up with an idea after idea? What about when we get older, and those words of encouragement started to fade away, draining from our minds and from our futures faster than possible? Is it because no one believes in our ability? Or, if you really think about it, did people make you lose sight of who you are?
As a little girl, I loved stories and storytelling. I’d beg my mother to read me one more book or tell me silly stories. I filled my own head with fairy tales and adventures. This may be part of the reason that my expectations in life when it comes to others are so high, and why they are constantly never met. I wanted to create a world where I’d have some form of control over everyone and everything. No one would bully me and tell me it was lame or boring and make fun of me. No one could stifle the creativity I knew was inside of me, waiting to thrive and spread across multiple platforms and have the words sprout from my fingertips.
But no one said my adventure would be easy.
I had many English teachers, almost all of them male, try to tell me that I’d never make it in the world as a writer. They’d tell me that women can’t be as successful as male authors, spouting names to me that had no meaning in my young head. They told me I’d never have the sophistication or mindset, and that I was too scatterbrained and had trouble focusing to sit down and write a whole novel. By the time teachers were first telling me this, I’d already written five novels.
It’s true, I have a hard time focusing on one thing at a time. It’s true that I have other issues that make it more difficult for me to write sometimes, and many people today still continue to insist that I will never make it. My father likes to tell me that if I don’t do enough in college, I’ll never make it in the real world.
But what is “Enough”? It’s a word that by definition means “as much or as many as required.” Here I am, a junior now in college, having written almost 10 novels, countless short stories, poems, articles, and papers. But many would still consider this as “Not enough.”
Listen. This world is so challenging to get through. I know that even at 21. I’ve been telling myself that the only way I’m going to get through is by doing my best and making myself happy. As a writer, if we don’t like our work, then what was the point of choosing this as a career in the first place? The goal is to never give up and to push through, no matter what people may tell you. The A’s from my college professors and the praise on my writing that I now get is proof enough that when I step outside the limits of Kutztown, there’s nothing I can’t do.