Writing is an enjoyment for me, whether it’s a simple, but contemplative, Facebook comment, one of my nightly Facebook diary entries, a short story or poem I’ve written. There always is a pleasure behind the thoughts and words and creative process. Writing is cathartic and a great way for me to release emotions and ideas.
More recently I started writing a book, which is a long way from any short story I’ve written. Still, the enthusiasm is there and I take delight in fashioning the storylines as they come my way.
In a nutshell, the book is about a visually-impaired high school senior living in a ranch in South Texas during the final year of the 1980s and the struggles he goes through internally and externally as he works on wrapping up his public school education and wondering what comes next. There’s my pitch for the Hollywood movie and any book agent.
Those who know me might say, that sounds much like you. Yes, I did grow up in a ranch in South Texas and did graduate from high school in 1989, but that is where the similarities end.
Or do they?
As I delve deeper into the life of this teenage boy and some of his struggles, I find more and more that much of the underlying emotions reflect what I went through that final year of school and wondering what was next for me? Would I be successful in college? What would I major in? There was that fear of departing the small school and heading to a college where I knew no one. Expectations certainly would be higher.
And within the context of school itself the complexities of being a teenager were ramped up. There was rejection from girls, trying to survive in a high school that was full of rough individuals, living a life of a visually impaired student before ADA law was in effect, and living with low self-esteem and insecurity.
In some ways, many of these issues are dealt with by all high school teenagers at one time or another. The big difference was my vision impairment. That set me aside from all other students at San Diego High School.
But as I write my story, bits and pieces of myself emerge and become the smaller, underlying building blocks of this tale. These elements, true to my own experience, weave together the underbelly of this character while the actual story itself is purely fiction.
Isn’t there a little bit of ourselves in everything we write? I believe so, even if the story itself is totally, one-hundred percent fabrication and outlandish. I do believe that art does imitate life, whether it’s on purpose or not. It has to happen, as the creator is directly involved in the creating.
- Roel -
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