When I was growing up, every first day of school would be at the beginning of hurricane season in southern Louisiana. And most years we could never actually GO to the first day of school because my hometown would be in the path of a hurricane.
STORMY weather can be a scary thing to a six year old. I can remember my mother filling up our bathtub with water just in case that would be all the six of us would have to drink or clean with for the next few days.
Hurricane lanterns would also be filled, with matches ready as most of the time we lost electricity as the STORM raged around us. The batteries in our small transistor radio would be changed out for new ones to make sure we would always have contact with the outside world.
There were even times when we had to evacuate and make a run for the high school gym. Cots would crowd the gymnasium floor and you could almost smell the fear radiating from strangers now huddled together like family…all waiting to see what destruction would come with the STORM beating on those glass panes.
I still remember one time my father lifting me onto his shoulders to look outside a tiny window as one hundred mile an hour winds tore shingles from a teacher’s house across the street from the school and trashcans became airborne, flying like missiles into cars parked on the road in front of us.
Later when I was an adult living in Dallas, I lived through a tornado crossing over the top of my mobile home one night, but in my mind, nothing could compare to those childhood STORMS.
Choosing to become a writer is very much like choosing to be a STORM chaser. Whether it’s the illusive story idea you try to catch or even the rarer publishing contract, STORMY elements surround your writing, raining on your parade of becoming an author…
Publishers rejecting your submissions.
Writer’s block in the middle of a project.
Agents refusing representation of your work.
We who live to write sit in the eye of the STORM every day and balance those stories calling to us. We hold them close and protect them until the time comes when the STORM passes and all we can see ahead of us is clear sailing on that path to publication…
I hope you have a awesome day today because you deserve it!
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International best selling, award-winning author, Donna L Martin, has been writing since she was eight years old. She is a 4th Degree Black Belt in TaeKwonDo by day and a ‘ninja’ writer of children’s picture books, chapter books, young adult novels and inspirational essays by night. Donna is a BOOK NOOK REVIEWS host providing the latest book reviews on all genres of children’s books, and the host of WRITERLY WISDOM, a resource series for writers. Donna is a member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers & Illustrators and Children’s Book Insider. She is a lover of dark chocolate, going to the beach and adding to her growing book collection. Donna’s latest book, LUNADAR: Homeward Bound (a YA fantasy), is now available in eBook and print form from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books A Million, and other online retailers.
