Winona Cross told me about her writing journey and something about her words jumped out at me. She happened across an online writing class and signed up. She wrote a story and another story and kept going. Her writing journey didn’t happen overnight though, it took more than a decade.
One Saturday morning she decided to go to a local writer’s group. That eventually led her to the West Texas A&M Writer’s Academy—one full week of intensive training during the summer. Along the way she surrounded herself with others who were on the same path she was on.
Which in turn resulted in her novella Dianne’s Destiny, a story centered around equestrian therapy, and which is one of the Scrimshaw Doll series from The Wild Rose Press.
It reminds me of the saying “A journey of a thousand miles starts with one step.” So simple—and yet, not at all for some people. They’re waiting for the map or for someone to plot the direction for them. They don’t realize they have to create their own path and make their own travel plans, just like Daniel Boone or Ponce de Leon. The old explorers probably took some wrong turns and did some adjusting in their journey, but what’s wrong with that? They could have died for their mistakes, and yet they still risked making them.
Assuming you aren’t hurting others, isn’t that so much better than the dissatisfaction of just being where life plopped you?
Just watch out for the possible pitfall of embracing another person’s dream or what you think you should like instead of what you really like—something that is sometimes only learned through trial and error.
Winona’s journey just happened to be writing. And the years it has taken her to get where she is today would have had the exact same number of minutes in them no matter how she spent the time.
If she’d realized that flower arranging was her talent, her love, then she should have taken it and explored it. No one else’s opinion of whether something is or isn’t exciting should matter. Really.
I happen to embrace writing as well. Love it. It kind of has prestige, or at least it does to me. But it’s only because it’s where my heart leads me. In truth, any glamour wears off the 1500’th time you’ve done anything. Then it boils down to heart. That is what leads to step 1501.
Imagine a person sitting in front of a television with a remote. They don’t stop on the first channel. They click that clicker until they find something that fascinates them, and then they watch it. We all do it. Yet dissatisfied people won’t click around with hobbies and dreams and whatever. Nothing pulls their attention at first glance so they keep watching the same ol’ program. And even when it’s in their power to see what’s on the other station, they don’t realize they can just start switching things around because they don’t think the other channel sounds that interesting either. Well, maybe it’s worth looking into.
For Winona, her fascination was writing. For me, it’s writing. But if I lose my fascination with writing, I have the remote in my hand.
BTW: Winona is now a member of the Romance Writer’s of America, and four other writing groups (OKRWA, CHRW, HHRW and OWFI). I would imagine she’s made quite a few friends along the way. That’s the other advantage of pursing interests. Visit Winona’s blog at : http:winonacross.blogspot.com
RSS Feed
