Writing Life

It had been a beautiful morning to stroll with Jacob through the local public gardens. Edna held her young son's hand as she pointed out the various flowers and other plants. He was happiest when they got to the vegetable gardens of course. At 4 years old, Jacob preferred fresh veggies and fruits to sweet snacks. Edna didn't know how that happened because she had a sweet tooth a mile wide.

Once they had walked the entire garden, Edna steered him towards the market to buy some of the produce that he loved so much. She kept him stocked up on all of his favorites. Jacob wandered along with her as she picked up grapes, bananas, and the small oranges he loved so much. She also grabbed a small bouquet of summer flowers for the dining room table, potatoes, and a few ears of corn for dinner.

As they approached the exit, Jacob pulled away from her and shot back over to the flower stall. Edna chased after him wondering what was going on. Jacob never ran away from her like that. She reached him just as the man running it handed Jacob several marigolds.

"Jacob, what are you doing?" Edna reached for his empty hand and turned him away from the stall. "You can not run off like that young man!"

"Sorry, Momma but I almost forgot my flowers." Tears welled up in Jacob's eyes.

"What do you mean 'your flowers.' I have the flowers we paid for Jacob." Edna just stared at him.

"The marigolds, ma'am." The flower vendor said beside her. "Jacob was admiring the marigolds while you were picking your bouquet out earlier. I offered him a few but told him to bring you with him to grab them before he left."

Edna looked at him as he spoke, knowing she recognized him from somewhere other than the market, but unsure where. She tried placing him in the few places she and Jacob went but nothing fit. He smiled and waited for her to respond. Edna realized she had been staring much too long.

"Oh...um...well...thank you" Edna held out her hand to shake his. "You really didn't have to do that. Jacob should have asked me to buy them if he wanted some."

"I offered. Jacob didn't ask for them. They are a little wilted but he still thought they were pretty, so I offered him them since they will get thrown away when Jackie opens the stall tomorrow. It's nice to see you again Edna."

"Well, I appreciate the gesture, even if they aren't perfect, and so does Jacob. I hope Jackie doesn't fire you over them." Edna was confused about how he knew her name when she didn't even know if she knew him at all.

Jacob chuckled, "Oh my sister would love to fire me, but she has trouble getting help as it is, and firing her only volunteer would definitely not be good."

Suddenly a lightbulb went off in Edna's head when he called Jackie his sister. She tried to imagine him fifteen years younger with sun-bleached summer hair chasing her and her summer friend around the yard of the lake house her parents had rented.

"David?" She looked up into his eyes again and knew she was right.

"I wondered if you would recognize me. It's been a long time, Edna. How have you been?" David smiled again.

"Oh my gosh, so long! Such a huge distance from where I saw you and Jackie last too. What in the world are you doing in New York?" Edna wanted to laugh at how far they all were from Lake Abby. Jackie and David's grandfather had owned the small private lake where Edna's father had rented a cabin for the summer. It had been the summer Edna turned 11, and they were the only other kids around. They had all become fast friends and Edna had cried the entire way home at the end of summer.

"Well, I have to close up shop and get to my paying job now, but it was great to see you, Edna. Stop back again in the morning sometime soon and Jackie will be working." David waved as he walked back around the counter. Edna and Jacob waved back and headed home.

Once they got home, Edna got Jacob settled in with a snack and his favorite toys. She still had to write a story for her writing group's contest and only had a couple days left to do it. The group had started as just a few dozen people. Now that it had over 1,000 members, the people who started it had decided to award $250 as a monthly prize to the person who wrote the best story. It didn't matter what the story was about, and Edna had been really struggling to pick a topic for two weeks.

Inspired by seeing David at the public gardens, Edna turned on her laptop and started typing. She wrote about every moment she spent at Lake Abby that summer. The words flowed out so quickly that Edna had over 3,000 words written in the first two hours. She took a break to make dinner for Jacob and then was right back at it. Before long, Edna was to the last week at Lake Abby and the heartbreak of leaving her new friends to go home.

"Mom, I'm tired," Jacob was getting whiny and Edna realized it was past time to get him to bed. She helped him brush his teeth and put on his pajamas. She tucked him in tight and started to reach for a story to read. Instead, she turned to him and asked if he was ok listening to stories about her summer at Lake Abby. Jacob readily agreed and was asleep before she even finished the first story.

The next day Edna proofread her story while Jacob was at preschool. She submitted it to the writing contest with more than 24 hours to spare. She knew now it would be a waiting game for the two weeks until they announced the winner. She decided to take Jacob to meet Jackie at the flower stall the next day. Edna hoped that things wouldn't be too awkward between them after all this time.

Jackie and Edna became fast friends again and tried to get together as much as possible. David came whenever he didn't have to work. The three talked about all the years in between Lake Abby and the present. They told Edna how they moved around a lot after their grandfather died and their uncle took over his properties. It had been Jackie's idea to move to New York a couple years ago.

She wanted to find find a nice quiet place in the Finger Lakes area to start her flower business. The public gardens had attracted Jackie right away. She was about to open a florist shop in the neighboring town as well. David had been recently divorced, so he tagged along on Jackie's adventure. He had been working at the local factory for a while, saving money to buy a house.

The two weeks flew by and Edna heard nothing from the writing club about the contest. She assumed that she had not won and prepared a new story for this month's contest. It was almost finished the day she got the letter from the leaders of the writing group in the morning mail.

Dear Edna,

We apologize for not speaking with you sooner but we have been waiting to hear back from the publishing company we work with about the story you wrote. As you know, our monthly writing contest has grown in popularity every month. We had well over 700 entries this past month alone.

What you may not be aware of, is that we reached out to Simone & Maggie Publishing Firm before starting the contest. They are always on the lookout for new talent, and we offered them a way to find talent without the writers being aware of it. This may seem devious but much of what they receive is repetitive and written to a particular mold. Authors who submit work to a publishing agent often try to write what they think the company wants instead of what they enjoy. Through our contest, the writers are able to express themselves with no reason to cater to someone else's needs.

We will be announcing you as the winner of last month's contest and have already sent your prize money. More importantly, we submitted the story to the publishing company and they are raving over it. They would like to meet with you as soon as possible to discuss working with you in the future. They also have an offer for you to publish your short story in an anthology of short stories they will be publishing later this year if you are interested.

Please call us at 123-456-7890 as soon as possible to discuss these matters.

Sincerely,

Jack and Amanda Stallings

Adventures Writing Group, LLC

Edna shook her head in disbelief. How was this possible? She had thought it was just a friendly writing group. It made no sense to her how this could have turned into something that could be life-changing for her and Jacob. She started jumping around the house in excitement before realizing she needed to calm down to call them. She dialed the number with still shaking hands and listened to the ringing at the other end.

That afternoon Edna and Jacob went to the public gardens in hopes of catching Jackie and David before Jackie left for the day. They were both at the flower stall as Edna rushed over with Jacob, waving the letter from the Stallings in front of her. She told them all about calling the Stallings and how the Stallings had immediately opened a conference call with the publishing company.

Edna explained that she had a meeting with the publishing company to go over contracts the following week but they were paying $2,000 to add her story to the anthology. They had also offered her a $30,000 contract to write ten more short stories and a full-length novel. It looked like Edna's dream of being a full-time writer was coming true. All because she had run into David at the flower stall and written a story about that summer so long ago.

That night, Edna, Jackie, David, and Jacob celebrated all of the good fortunes that had come Edna's way. When it was Jacob's bedtime, they made plans to get together again soon. Edna hugged them both and handed them each a copy of the story she had written so they could read it for themselves. As soon as Jacob fell asleep, she went to her desk and opened her laptop.

She looked at the story she had planned to enter in that month's writing group contest. It was no longer a contest entry, but one of ten more stories she needed to write for the publishing agency. She had only a few paragraphs left to write so she finished it quickly. Then she opened a new file and titled it "Ideas for the Shorts." She thought about other things that had happened in her life and listed the ones she felt she could write about well.

Sometime later, she realized she was halfway through a second short story. She was surprised at how easy writing like this was for her. She closed her laptop and got ready for bed. She spent the next few weeks writing every chance she got in between meetings with the Stallings and the Simone & Maggie Publishing Firm agents. By the end of the following month, she had written all ten short stories and begun the work on her full-length novel. When anyone asked how she did it so easily, Edna would reply, "I'm just writing life..."