Vignettes and Sorts

Writing to Write

My posture was rigid, tense and ready to spring into action, while I perched on the deep maroon 

auditorium seat as I waited apprehensively for the speaker to arrive. Looking around, I saw dozens of 

other wannabe writers like myself sitting casually and mingling with their peers. I didn't understand 

how they could be so calm and collected in such a public place. There were more than four-dozen 

poets, authors, and playwrights in spacious and echoing auditorium.

Glancing up, I could see the ceiling rafters, more than fifty feet above, and observing the seemingly 

endless rows of seats to the rear of me, I guessed that the auditorium could occupy over two thousand 

people. Though the small group of writers seemed to be swallowed in the depth of the room, I still felt 

as if their presences closing in on me.

I turned my attention to the stage placed before me. I was sitting in the first row so I had an 

unobstructed view of the presentation that should be starting any minute. I looked at the clock on the 

wall, almost leaping with joy when I saw that the speaker should be appearing in less than a minute. 

The moment of bliss was quickly interrupted when I glanced back to the other authors and caught on 

of their eyes.

An older, greying gentleman clothed in khakis and a white button up shirt covered with an ugly teal 

sweater began to break away from the group and turned towards me. He smiled as he picked his way 

through his peers and around the seats to where I sat. I felt my anxiety begin to build with each step 

he took. I was a balloon, and each pace closer he came I inflated more and more, and I knew that if I 

became too full, I would pop. He was less than twenty feet away, and my breath decided it was an 

excellent time to explore the various speeds and its inhalation capacities.

As if by the grace of God, it was that exact moment when the host appeared on the stage to ask us all 

to take our seats, because the speaker was ready to begin. I looked to the older man, returning him 

the small shrug of the shoulders and a smile he gave me as he turned around to return to his 

colleagues and his seat. I visibly released the sigh of relief as I turned to face the stage once more.

As everyone found their seats, the house lights began to dim as the stage flooded with an iridescent 

shine as the speaker walked on stage, meeting the round of applause that followed halfway. I 

observed the small man on stage, and was a bit taken back. He looked no older than twenty-five, and 

he was short, thin, and dressed more casually than anyone else in the room. His khaki skinny jeans 

were paired with neon green shoes, with a matching belt. He wore a plain white button up which was 

accompanied with a neon green bow tie.

He greeted the audience with a simple raise of the hand, both calling silence to the applause and 

waving a greeting to the audience members. He began to speak with a low, flowing and pleasant tone. 

He described his ever growing love for literature and words, that sprang from the classic novels his 

mother used to read him before bed time as a child, a chapter a night. He transitioned into how his 

passion for writer burst forth from the love of books, explaining how he could barely contain 

excitement after reading a well written sentence where the words just flowed together, forming a cool, 

clear stream that seeped into a fount of literary knowledge.

Finally, he began to speak of the beginning of his career as an author. He told us of the pride he felt 

when he received the phone call from the publishing house he sent his manuscript too, telling him 

that he had been accepted and they were going to publish his book. He spoke of the tears that 

streamed down his face as the utter bliss of holding his published book for the first time overcame 

him. "Though," he stated, "I'm not here today to tell you the joys of being an author, or how to get 

published, because in reality, none of that matters."

You could hear the soft scraping of cloth on cloth as everyone in the room sat up a little bit straighter 

at those words.

"It really doesn't matter how many people read what you write. It doesn't matter if it is a billion 

readers, or just your spouse who reads it. All that really matters is that YOU wrote it. Not only did you 

take the time, the sweat, the frustration, and the hundreds of sleepless nights to finish writing your 

novel, or poetry collection, or whatever it is, you wrote yourself into history. You wrote something that 

absolutely no one else could, because you wrote what YOU have to say. You wrote the story that only 

you could tell. You may not be the next best-selling author, or you may not think that you are as good as, say, J.K. Rowling, but that in itself is a victory. As an author, you don't want to be the next 

whatever, you want to be the first! You want to say something that no one else has, or even dared, to 

say before. Comparing your work to someone else's is like comparing a fish to the moon. It doesn't 

make sense, because the two are so different in every possible way. You don't have to be a best-selling 

author, or even a published author, to be a writer; you simply just have to believe that what you alone 

are daring enough and risking enough to say is worth sharing."

Those last words were still ringing in my ears as I laid my head down and closed my eyes to rest that night.