Things That Grow - P52 Week 16

When I started the P52 Photo Challenge the thing that I hoped would grow was my photography skills. What I didn't expect to grow was my writer's soul, but as the weeks have gone by that is exactly what has happened. I look forward to writing the story as much as I enjoy taking the picture.

My writer's soul first emerged when I was in 3rd grade. Every couple of years there was a Young Author's Conference held at our local college. A child was chosen from each grade 3rd-5th from each local elementary school, based on their self-made, self-written book. I remember working so hard on my book, carefully writing my story out on the beautiful, crisp, white pages. I added illustrations to each page (of course in 3rd grade I called them drawings), drawing a beautiful picture on the construction paper cover. Oh, the sense of pride I felt when my book was picked to represent the 3rd grade from my school.

The day of the conference came, the excitement I felt riding to the college on the yellow school bus, being away from school for the whole day at a Writer's Conference. I remember stepping off the bottom step of the bus when we arrived, marveling at how old the buildings were and how tall the students were, the joy that filled me that day. I was able to read my book to a group of my peers and feel a common bond with each of them, we were all there because we loved to write.

Where my writer's soul disappeared to after that day I don't know, probably lost among all the busy activities of being a kid. It has made a few guest appearances over the years, but it has always quickly disappeared. It has taken this P52 Challenge to awaken it again, it is finally growing , it is being fed by a new challenge each week, and at the end of 52 weeks it hopefully will have grown enough to fit into my 44-year-old body.