“Welcome to Hollywood! Everyone’s got a dream. What’s your dream?” Those are both the opening and the closing lines in the movie Pretty Woman, a story in which every young woman’s childhood dream is realized when Vivian is swept off her feet by Mr. Right, a very rich and very handsome Mr. Right (okay, I would argue that she actually swept him off of his feet, but you get the point). Though many would argue, understandably so, that the road Vivian took to find her dream – running away from home, living on the streets, becoming a prostitute, and being hired by Edward for the week – is not the best way to achieve one’e dream, it’s those words that open and close the movie that come back to me over and over again. I hear them echoing in my mind at least once a week, but I can’t really explain to you why. After all these years, I’ve decided to chalk it up to my inner voice constantly reminding me that as a little girl I had a dream that until recently was nothing more than a wispy cloud elusively hovering just out of reach as I stretched my hand out the window on a mountain road.
When I was in third grade, Mrs. Bizup said to me “You are a writer.” At the age of eight, I could hardly know exactly what she was trying to tell me, but I was thrilled when several of my poems were published in a local magazine (yes, Mrs. Bizup was behind that). From that point forward, I would imagine myself in many different positions and occupations in life. In middle school, I thought about being a teacher. In high school, I wanted to be a lawyer. I went to college determined to be a political speech writer but shifted gears when it came time to apply for graduate school and became a librarian. If you really think about it, all of those professions had one thing in common – each of them uses a large amount of reading and writing. The key word there is, of course, WRITING!
Oh if I had only listened to Mrs. Bizup in third grade or to Mrs. Wilson in twelfth grade who told me that I would make a great lawyer, but my real gift was writing. How many times have I finished a book and thought, I could write a better plot? Or watched a movie and thought, I could write a better script? My whole life I have watched people and imagined them as characters in a book or read an article and wondered how it could be translated into a story. In the back of my mind, I always knew what I wanted to do, but I never had the courage to try or the self-confidence to think that I could succeed. Finally, at the urging of my mother and my husband, I quit my job and began writing.
It brings me great pleasure to be able to say that my first novel, A Place to Call Home, has just been released in its second edition. I’ve already had a children’s book, Crabbing With Granddad, sell more copies than I ever dreamed. And my second novel, Picture Me, is complete and ready for the publishing process to begin. I feel like, at the age of 45, my life is just beginning, and it’s all because I was encouraged to take a leap and follow my dream.
So I ask you now, what’s your dream? Everybody’s got a dream…
Amy Schisler is an author of mystery and suspense novels. Her first book, A Place to Call Home may be purchased in stores, online, and through ibooks. Her previously published children’s book, Crabbing With Granddad may be purchased in stores and on Amazon.
http://amyschislerauthor.com/amyschislerauthor.com/Books.html You may follow Amy at http://facebook.com/amyschislerauthor on Twitter @AmySchislerAuth and on her web site http://amyschislerauthor.com
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