She gave me an appreciative grin before continuing. “Then a couple years ago for Christmas, my dad gave me a receipt showing he’d paid for a six-week novel-writing course being given at Columbia by a prestigious novelist. I was out of my mind with excitement, could hardly wait for it to start. Unfortunately, I didn’t make it through week three.”
“What happened?”
“That was the week we shared our first chapters with the class.”
“You didn’t have one?”
“Oh no. I had one. But after I’d read it aloud, I wished I’d never written it. I wished I’d never written anything in my life.”
Her forehead wrinkled, and she kept her gaze trained on the sand ahead of us as she revisited a moment that clearly still caused her pain.
“The instructor wasn’t overly kind about anyone’s sample… but he had a special disgust for mine. He ripped it for a full fifteen minutes—I know, because I kept checking the wall clock, praying the hands would move faster so I could leave.”
She nodded and rolled her hands in front of her. “It went on and on, and he got more and more impassioned about his hatred of my writing. If it had been only about that chapter, I might not have been so destroyed, but he made it personal, you know? His final words to me were, ‘You’llneverbe a writer. You should just quit now and save everyone the time and embarrassment, especially yourself.’ I walked out of there and never went back.”
She gave a sad laugh. “Thus endeth my career in fiction.”
My blood instantly boiled with outrage. “Who was the instructor?”
The names of a few of my less likable contemporaries popped to mind. Some people considered themselves the final word on how to write properly. My personal opinion was whatever got the job done was the “right way.”
Bonnie gave me a regretful glance. “Now that I’ve told such an unflattering story about him, I probably shouldn’t say.”
My response rolled out like gravel. “You shoulddefinitelysay.”
For some reason, Iwantedthis guy’s name. I also wanted his home address and the GPS location of any secluded streets the pompous ass might happen to walk down alone at night.
“I don’t think so.” She shook me off. “Publishing is a small business. I’d be foolish to trash anyone. Anyway, that was a long time ago.”
“And did you quit writing?”
“Not entirely. It took me a while, but I did go back to the story. It just wouldn’t let me go. I scrapped the entire first chapter, of course. But eventually, I finished the book, just for myself, you know?”
“Good for you. You have to write for yourself first, before anyone else. What’s it about?”
I surprised myself with that question—I made it a pointneverto ask other writers about their stories anymore. For one thing, I didn’t want anyone to ever accuse me of stealing their ideas. For another, it might lead to their asking me to critique for them, which could lead to all kinds of grief I didn’t need in my life.
But I genuinely wanted to know about Bonnie’s book. I wanted to know more abouther,and as most writers would tell you, what we chose to write about revealed a lot about our true selves.
She gave me a shy glance. “I’d rather not talk about it. I’m never going to publish it, anyway, so it doesn’t matter. That part of my life is over. I’ve moved on.”
I shook my head, feeling like an empath in that moment. I understood completely. The loss of your gift left a jagged hole in your life nothing else could quite fill up.
“Fear can really mess you up, can’t it?”
“Fear?” she asked.
“Yeah—the fear of rejection, the fear of being told you’re not good enough… the fear of being hurt again.”
She didn’t respond, only kept watching me with those deep, dark eyes, waiting for me to go on.
Am I really about to do this?
She’d been open and honest with me. I admired her courage in doing that, and I was amazed to find myself tempted to open up to her in return.
At the same time, the thought of telling her about one of my worst moments had my belly tied up in complicated sailor’s knots. For a few moments, I wavered on the edge, not sure which way I’d go.
And then I took the plunge.
