My Story...

I am a writer, it’s just what I do.

I can’t help myself. It’s as if the words well up inside me; begging to be released.

I’ve been told it started early on, before I could even spell. I had a pencil in my hand and was compelled to write.  Truth is there were many walls in our home that had to be painted over during my childhood years. I remember the sadness I felt as the color washed away the words that came from my heart, not to mention the pain on my backside.

I was told I was foolish, wasting so much time writing, there were chores to do. It seems my parents felt the need to restrict the amount of paper I could use, but, I had a rebellious side and it didn’t deter me. I would write on the wall inside my bedroom closet, no one ever looked there. I even recall using a razor blade to tear blank pages out of the backs of books just to have something to write on.  Some might call it an obsession. I call it a purpose. I was made to write.

The first time I was published was in fourth grade at Bryant Elementary School in Garden Grove, California. It was a small story for the school newsletter. It was a contest and my entry was selected.  I have never forgotten the euphoric feeling I felt as I watched others reading the words I wrote.

I kept writing, short stories, poems, lyrics. If I could find the notebooks from those years, oh what a treasure it would be!

My writing stopped, in 1977. What no family member could deter in my early years preceding high school, one teacher accomplished in a semester.

My motivation was replaced by humiliation and the arrogant ridicule of my work in front of other students, it derailed me. 

His red pen was like an evil fire that singed my passion for writing and literally snuffed it out. Constructive criticism this was not. It was the only class I did not earn an above average grade in. It was, in fact, the only class I ever failed. I still feel the ache in my gut as I write those words.

I wore the label of a failure like the scarlet letter.  I floundered. I chose the easy classes, staying far from any type of curriculum that might challenge me and I definitely avoided any class where writing was required.  College seemed a ridiculous idea for the failure I believed I was. The only thing I achieved was getting high on anything to keep my mind of the pain of losing my best friend.

I put my writing on the shelf for the next 20 years.

Then one night I awoke from a dream and felt the urge to write down the dream. The next morning, I wrote my first script, start to finish.

Boldly I walked into the pastor’s office I left it on his desk with a note. “God gave me a script.” The following Sunday he approached me, and I braced myself for the rebuke for being so bold as to claim God spoke to me.  He handed me the script and as 

I looked through it for the red marks, I heard him say the words that set my life back on course:  “I love it, let’s get some actors together and make it happen!”  There were no red marks,  not one word revised on that script or the thirty more I wrote, while a member of that congregation.

I haven’t stopped writing since. I’ve been published in corporate newsletters and magazines. I started blogging before it became the fashionable thing to do.  The doors begin to open and I find myself being noticed for my writing. My political blog became controversial (that’s always a good way to get noticed).

I started writing film reviews; Interviewing up and coming Christian filmmakers, actors and producers. I loved it, but I literally made pennies. I liked the challenge of writing for an audience beyond my facebook friends, but I began to wonder if I could really make a living writing... 

...this is the journey of becoming Melody Olson...to be continued...