I had an amazing and very gratifying experience the other day. I was honored to speak before over 900 middle school students. It began as an opportunity to talk with a couple classes about writing, being an author and my book. It quickly grew into a five session talk with a total of 32 classrooms signing up.
After each session, these young students came up to me holding two inch bits of paper torn from larger pages. They held them out with a pen and asked for my autograph. My heart was touched. When I could, I grabbed something larger and more lasting to sign for them. They asked fantastic questions and were truly interested about writing.
When I was young, no one encouraged me to write. No one told me that there were carriers in writing. Everyone lumped writers with philosophers and others who were interested in things that would not lead to a job to support a family on. I wish someone had given me encouragement.
Because of that and many other things in my life, I want to reach out to anyone, young or old that has a dream to do something. I want to provide whatever encouragement and assistance I can. At times, though, I don’t feel like I have much to offer.
At the end of the day I received my Christmas gift for the year. A young girl sought me out after the presentations were done. She asked for my help. She wanted to be a writer. Bless her heart. I hope that the little I can offer will someday play at least a small part in her dream coming true. For me, that’s what it is all about.
I was getting ready to leave and a teacher came, walking fast down the hall.
"I'm gladd I caught you," she said. "I had one of my student's mom call me a minute ago. Her daughter was sick today and mom kept her home. Her daughter cried because she had really wanted to come and meet you. She's trying to be a writer, Mom told her daughter she'd get you to sign a book for her. I told the mom I'd take care of it. How do I buy one of your books and get it signed?"
"Will this work?" I asked her. I had a manuscript copy of my book that I had used to show the kids what 90,000 typed words looked like. I signed the manuscript to the teacher.
"Wow," she said and clutched to book. "This is really so kind of you. She'll be overjoyed"
That was a gdreat day for me. I hop to have more chances to make someone happy.
