Alma Alexander: Inspired by a Real Live Writer

When I was fifteen years old, my school brought out a Real Live Writer to talk to my class.

Our visitor spoke to freely us about her life. She talked of the fickleness of inspiration; of the frustrations of waiting for weeks or months or sometimes even years for a response to a piece of work; of the bitterness of rejection. She spoke of every valley of shadow in her life, frankly, without holding back, without giving us a rose-tinted vision of what a life like hers could be like.

And yet, she spoke of it all with the light of angels in her eyes, and she also spoke of the pleasure of simple acceptance, of the fierce joy which came as a gift offered by a stranger who had read one's words and found them pleasing. She had brought books to show us, and she touched them all gently–with pride, with contentment, with love.

Up until that moment, I'd written poetry (LOTS of it!) and I'd written stories. By the age of thirteen or so, I'd even written a novel which (thankfully) didn't survive to this day—but my ideas about my future had not taken shape or form yet.

On this rainy night in November, they did. A flame was kindled in me that has never gone out. I looked at our visiting writer and I said to myself, "Some day, that is going to be me. This is what I WANT."

I was no childhood prodigy or an "overnight success." Twenty years passed between that childhood vow and my first published book. But in those twenty years, I never stopped dreaming, I never stopped believing, I never once considered giving up. And now here I am, with books of my own in my hands.

Do YOU want this life? It will not be easy. It will not be simple. Sometimes it will be hurtful and frustrating, and you will water the tender plant of your dream with tears rather more often than you might like. Nothing really worth having in life comes easy, after all.

But it's worth the wait.

Alma Alexander
Author of Worldweavers: Gift of the Unmage