Following My Daughter's Example

The house is quiet except for the occasional giggle of my son. Almost too quiet. His big sister isn’t tormenting him or pestering him. I tiptoe to the mess of a bedroom she calls her evil lair, peek around the corner, and see her. She’s sitting on her bed writing in a notebook.
Loudly I exclaim “WHAT ARE YOU DOING!?!”
The surprise attack has the desired effect.
She jumps nearly off the bed then glares at me. “Moooooom!”
Snickering I again ask what she is up to.
She explains she is writing a book.

That’s right folks. My daughter has become a writer! *Insert proud mom face here*

She and her friends had started writing a story together about a zombie apocalypse or something of that sort, and she had fallen in love with the act of storytelling. I now can find her curled up in her favorite corners about the house writing in her notebook and proudly telling me each night how many chapters she was able to get done. She has always had a love for reading, ever since I taught her when she was three because she simply could not wait for pre-k to learn to read. She was already piecing words together from billboards or road signs. Now she is using her creativity to use those words and make her own stories come to life!

I’m impressed. I’m Proud. I’m... jealous?

I admittedly am quite jealous. She has that joy of writing that I lost years ago when I moved from Abilene. I’m not sure how I lost it really, but writing became a chore. I put it off. Made excuses. Eventually, I quit trying at all.

After watching her work on her story the past few weeks I started feeling that urge to work on my own stories. I’ve always got some ideas brewing, and have quite a few notes and scribbles in my notebook, but have never had the drive to follow them down the rabbit hole again, until now.

The last two weeks all I can think of is stories. Reading stories, editing stories, fleshing out new stories. I want my stories to live! I want to share them and say I did something.

So I’m back at it again. Working through the mood that I am nothing special, and breathing life back into my stories, and I have my amazing, beautiful, creative daughter to thank for lighting that spark once more!