Everything has a beginning …
Have you ever had a dream?
Miss Debbie had a dream. She still does. It is tucked away inside her heart. She kept it hidden for a very long time. She thought about it almost every day but, it seemed so far away.
In the meantime, she kept busy growing up and going to school. After she finished school, she studied to become a teacher. Her handsome prince rode into her life during this time and asked her to be his wife. She said, “Yes!”
Miss Debbie and her prince travelled and worked, and, over the next couple of years, they became the parents of three very special children.
At home, Miss Debbie loved to bake with her children, share stories, and especially do arts and craft with them. It was her absolute favourite part of the day.
When her children grew up a little, Miss Debbie began her teaching career and loved this very important job. She enjoyed watching smiles light up her students’ faces when they discovered something new or finally grasped a new idea. One of her favourite things to do, even today, was to turn those frowns upside down.
Miss Debbie loves babies, small children, middle-sized children, up-sized children, her own children, her grandchildren, other people’s grandchildren, puppies, horses, possums and practically all creatures great and small.
She also loves books. In fact, books play a very important part in Miss Debbie’s life. She collects them, hoards them, loans them, borrows them, breathes them, devours them, writes about them, attempts to write them, reads them and is obsessed with them.
She also loves to write and draw in her journal. She particularly loves to draw in her favourite sketch books and colour-in her favourite colouring in books.
She loves to read stories to anyone who will listen.
But, back to her dream …
Miss Debbie’s dream never went away. It stayed with her a long time and as the years passed, it grew louder and louder in her heart. She tried to quieten it down by distracting herself with other hobbies, but her dream got noisier and noisier and really rather bossy.
One day, she got brave and decided to tell her closest friend, her handsome prince. First, she whispered it. Then, she said it out loud, just to hear what it sounded like.
The words sounded strange to Miss Debbie’s ears.
“I want to be a writer.”
I cannot possibly be a writer, she thought. And waved it away like brushing aside a nuisance fly.
“I am a teacher, a mother, a wife, but I am not a writer. I just love to write,” she reasoned.
“You know you want to be a writer,” her dream persisted. “Make plans.”
So she did, because the dream wouldn’t let her rest.
Upon her last child leaving school, she gave up teaching full time and applied to go to university to study creative writing and learn how to write novels and short stories and writing for children and all sorts of things that tickled her pink.
But, Miss Debbie’s nerves almost got the better of her.
“What am I doing?” She asked herself, over and over.
Her prince was charming about the big step she was taking and her children cheered her on.
Her hard work paid off and she successfully graduated. It had been 21 years since she’d studied to be a teacher at university and now, here she was, graduating with one of her own children.
Some things are stranger than fiction, she marvelled.
Going to university really helped Miss Debbie learn lots of things about creative writing and the discipline it takes to show up everyday to write. She finally had a degree; a special piece of paper that told her she was a graduated student who had successfully studied creative writing.
Now she felt like she was a writer.
I did it! I accomplished my dream! She thought. That should quieten things down now.
Miss Debbie discovered some good things happen when she followed her dream.
The school that she’d worked at as a teacher for many years, invited her to come and work part time as an extension writing teacher in their gifted and talented program. Miss Debbie taught creative writing to very enthusiastic students and they taught her many things about creativing writing.
I know … you’re scratching your head and wondering what am I talking about? How could Miss Debbie learn stuff from her students? It’s strange, I know, but she did! It sounds quite mind boggling, in fact. But Miss Debbie learnt lots. Her students learnt lots from her, too. They learnt just how passionate she is about writing and books, oh, and art, not to mention, them! Yes, she was pretty passionate about her students.
Miss Debbie spent the best six years of her teaching career teaching students about creative writing and her reward was seeing the fruits of her labour. Her students’ success stories in competitions delighted her immensely. Highlights in her teaching career were occasions when past students sought her out to thank her for inspiring them to become writers themselves.
Miss Debbie discovered she’d been a writer all her life. You see, you don’t have to be commercially published to be a writer. You just have to show up and write, everyday.
Miss Debbie had never thought to be published …
until now!
She and her prince moved to a very sunny and happy place to live and be closer to family. She moved too far away from school to continue teaching there. For two years after leaving the city, Miss Debbie commuted a long, two and a half hour drive each way, each day, to continue teaching her two days a week, but at the end of two years of doing this, it was sadly, time to say farewell.
Now that she is no longer teaching students in school and is living in her gorgeous surroundings, her dream revisited her.
“I think I’d like us to be published, now.” it told her boldly.
Miss Debbie squirmed and wriggled. “Really?” she asked.
“Really.” her dream replied.
And so, the next chapter in Miss Debbie’s dream is unfolding like this story.
Miss Debbie knows that to become published is a whole new journey and whilst she doesn’t know the outcome, she can sense the possibility.
In the meantime, life continues while the dreams live on and Miss Debbie is about to enter stage left and continue a new season of sharing her passion for children’s art and writing with youngsters in her new neck of the woods, starting here, at A Garden of Art and Stories.
Would you like to participate in the journey? Sign up to follow Miss Debbie and her dream and see what happens next.
What is your dream telling you?
Be brave and share your dream in the comments section below. Whisper it, if you will.
Until next time,
Make art and create words.
A Garden of Stories & Art 