“A dream is a wish your heart makes,

When you’re fast asleep,

In dreams you lose your heartaches,

Whatever you wish for, you keep.

Have faith in your dreams and someday,

Your rainbow will come smiling through,

No matter how your heart is grieving, If you keep on believing, The dream that you wish will come

true. A dream is a wish your heart makes, When you’re feeling small, Alone, In the night you

whisper, Thinking no one can hear you at all. You wake with the morning sunlight, To find fortune

that is smiling on you, Don’t let your heart be filled with sorrow, For all you know tomorrow, The

dream that you wish will come true. A dream is a wish your heart makes, A dream is a wish your

heart makes, You Wake with the morning sunlight, To find fortune that is smiling on you, Don’t let

your heart be filled with sorrow, For all you know tomorrow, The dream that you wish will come

true. No matter how your heart is grieving If you keep on believing The dream that you wish will

come true” ~ as sung by Jiminy Cricket

This month, we’re continuing our theme of getting to know each other and our readers.  For July, we’re discussing what got us interested in writing and the road we’ve taken to reach our goals. I’m doing mine in third person story format, because what’s more fun than a story?

Once upon a time there was a young girl who loved to read. Growing up, she devoured everything she could find. The library in the small town where she lived consisted of one room that was filled from floor to ceiling with books. The walls that you could see were painted white and the shiny hardwood floors squeaked when you walked on them. The librarian was a little old woman who always had a recommendation. The girl would take her stacks of books home and while her brother and sister played, she read. She always had her nose in a book. But there was a dark side, the church she grew up in believed that women were not equal to men. Women were not encouraged to pursue a career, only to marry, have children and obey their husbands. It never occurred to her that she was smart enough to write something as wonderful as a book. She didn’t question the beliefs of her church because it was what she’d always known. At least, until she became a teenager and left her beliefs behind.

She went wild as a teen and tried many different things, but the one thing she never gave up was reading. After a few years, she settled into a relationship with a young man. They had fun and she moved away from her family. There were good times and bad.

It was a few years later when life found her as a young, single mother. Her son was her world. He’d just started kindergarten and she was proud beyond words. One night, during his first spring break, she came home from her job and as she often did late at night, she stole into her son’s room where he lay sleeping peacefully. She whispered the magical words, “midnight swim,” and he laughed as he woke and the two of them went to the pool in the backyard and swam under the moonlight. They swam and talked and laughed. It was an enchanted time.

Once they were both tired and cooled off from the Texas heat, they sat side by side on the porch swing and watched the moonlight. The young mother asked if he’d like to hear a story and the son responded that he would. She told him a story and over the next six nights, she wove it into something that made him laugh, get excited and yell that he didn’t like it and in the same breath that he loved it. When the story was done the child cried, but two things were very clear: the son wanted more stories and the mother wanted to tell them.

She began writing, but was never able to capture the magic of the original story she’d told. She took classes and read books about how to write a successful story, but none of it translated into a workable idea. Time moved on and occasionally she’d pull out her notebook and try again. It was many years and several states later when the mother’s world began crumbling down around her and she remembered the magic of words and the places the stories could go. She admitted to a coworker her secret dream (to be a published author). This friend became her best friend and they shared many laughs and dreams. One day the friend came into work and told the woman about a dream she had. They sat and giggled and played the “what if” game, though their job duties came first, of course. One night, full of the what ifs, the woman began writing a continuation of her friend’s dream. It flowed and kept flowing until that’s how they spent their time, talking and writing about dreams. But neither seemed to mind and eventually both women took a giant leap and began writing their own stories. The young mother had never been happier. With the help of several muses, she never stopped writing. She met others along the way and honed her skills. She traded critiques, did beta reading, formed a platform and wrote continuously – anything she could do to make her dream come true. The journey was long and hard and along the way she found happiness and great sadness, but…

To be continued – with the happily ever after part…