I spent over a decade of my life training to become a professional ballet dancer. I danced on top of blisters till the blood showed in thin lines through my toe shoes, I stretched my ankle ligaments so far that I’m still never 100% confident that a flat-face fall isn’t moments away. I ensured I never went over 105 pounds. But ultimately, I never made it as far as the backline of the corps. I got a gig dancing on a cruise liner for a few seasons, but as far as my dream of taking the stage as a swan or a sugar plum went, I failed. So when the call came in my twenties to write, not interested in getting intimate with rejection again, I ignored it. I even went on a secretarial course. But still the call came. Still I ignored it. I had a child and was assured by older women that motherhood would cleanse me of all driving ambition, that my child would become my world. They were right, but not as much as they were wrong. And so, when my baby was just six weeks old, I strapped him to my chest and I started writing. And here I am, a decade later. Published, still trying to get published and hoping I’ve got decades more of this to go.

http://www.virginiafranken.com/

The post Virginia Franken appeared first on Warren Adler.