Road Trip Wednesday: Understanding the Ladybug

Road Trip Wednesday is hosted by YA Highway.

This Week's Topic: What's your numero uno reason for writing?

The Sequel: How the Ladybug Applied Mascara

One of my earliest memories is learning about fables in elementary school. I loved them, and was as excited as I'd ever be about an assignment when our teacher asked us to write a fable. 

I wrote about how the ladybug got its spots and it was a creative, touching, absolutely ridiculous piece that I was so proud of. 

Fast forward, and I have more questions. I learn about friendship and God and love and dance and sex and history and music, but it's never enough. I always know that there's more to know, but I don't know what else I need to know; I don't know what questions to ask.

So, I write about it. I write about a character who has casual sex to understand why people do that (as well as why people don't.) I write about relationships to understand how they can be so messy and so incredible at the same time. I write about dance to understand why it affects me the way it does.

I write to learn about how the ladybug got its spots. 

Why do you write?

Betraying Your Ten-Year-Old Self

I've always wanted to be a teacher.

I was always the teacher when I played school with my cousins, it, all of my jobs and most of my volunteer work has involved some form of teaching or mentoring, and I would daydream about my lesson plans.

I'm in my third year of university, at the point where I have to plan for my Bachelor of Education, or for grad school, or for anything else that will shape my future. And, I'm not sure I want to be a teacher anymore.

Don't get me wrong, I still love teaching, and it's still an option, but now it's one of many options; it's no longer the plan. The hardest part of this is the feeling that I'm betraying my ten-year-old self. I always wanted to be a teacher, but always just ended.

You know what else I wanted when I was ten? For my first published books to be a series entitled The Tank Top Girls, all about three girls in a band who wore tank tops and occasionally dated the Backstreet Boys, and for all of this to happen when I was sixteen, eighteen at the latest.

It won't surprise you, or even me, to learn that didn't happen, and now I'm a twenty-year-old unpublished writer working on her second novel, who never finished the million book project that was The Tank Top Girls.

But, there are tons of aspects of the last ten years of my life that have surprised my, like my friends, faith, jobs, passions, school, and all the awesome, little surprises that come in-between.

The point is that everything changes, you never know where life will take you, yada yada yada. And, through that, your goals may change. And that's ok.

To be clear, this is not me telling you to give up on your dreams, or that it's bad to make goals. What I do want to say is not to get caught up in what could've or should've been, and instead in what could be. It's ok if your writing hasn't gone the way you planned, because maybe you're on your way to something better.

My ten-year-old self thought I'd be a published writer by now, working towards a Bachelor of Education. It would surprise her to know that I'm not, and actually in the I don't know what to do with my life stage that she was so sure she'd skip.

But, I'm still writing, I'm still doing what I love, and I think she'd be ok with that.