Stars In Her Eyes

STARS IN HER EYES

By Shannon O’Connor

Once upon a time, in a faraway land, there lived a girl who wanted to write, but never did. She had a lot of things to say, stories that she wanted to tell, but she never put them down. She couldn’t bring herself to start, because she didn’t think she was talented enough.

One day, she read about a literary journal in a place called New Mexico that published stories about people that were strange. The girl was strange, and she had started to write about herself, so she sent this journal a story. They published it! She didn’t make any money, but she was amazed someone she didn’t know liked her writing. They published a few of her stories.

She went to gatherings of writers and met people who published journals, and they offered to read her work. She published some poems and stories in journals of people she knew. She wrote stories about traveling in space and being sad, and also about weird people she knew, and she looked specifically for publications that would like those types of stories. She found a lot of editors that enjoyed her work, and that pleased her.

Even though she now publishes a plethora of stories, she still gets rejections. Sometimes the rejections come back-to-back, but she still persists. She tries not to take these personally, because she knows it’s a part of being a writer. Even though some rejections come when she’s in a bad mood, and it makes her feel worse.

The girl has not lived happily ever after, because there’s no such thing. She has never published a book, but dreams of that someday – she has bigger stories to tell, longer versions of stories she has written before, and stories she has never told. She will persist, and keep writing, dreaming of an almost happily ever after.