As a writer, do you need instant gratification, or do you believe in being tested?  Do written words flow easily, eloquently from your mind to the paper, or do you have to wrangle them, one by one, onto the printed page and still end up with something less than your vision?

My writing journey began 24 years ago when my budget forced me to take a hiatus from college.  I was newly married, a new mother, unemployed, and living with my in-laws.  Ah, the good old days.  In that desperate time, a dream took root in my soul.  The dream of being a writer.  A wordsmith.  A master of escapism.

So far, it is still a dream.  My first book, a tortured story about the American Revolution, eventually grew to 500 awful pages.  So awful in fact, that I threw it away ten years after writing it.  I took five years of time stolen from my family and hundreds of dollars spent on coffee and No-Doz and tossed it all in a dirty green garbage bin--where it belonged.

My next story was an only slightly better one about the Civil War.  Alas, the heroine was sadly unlikable.  I’ve quit writing 3 times since, for years at a pop. 

And yet, though I quit writing, writing did not quit me.  My third story, SAGER'S PASSION--a western set in the wild days when Wyoming was still in the Dakota Territory--won its category in the RWA Golden Heart contest last year.

I believe I am making progress. 

Which is good, because I’m not quitting again. 

                                                                             Elaine Levine    

(And G.G. Levine, I do thank you for rescuing us those many years ago!)

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© 2007 Elaine Levine