The Power of Faith
by Irene Smith
NOTE: This vignette was written as an exercise for the Practice-W mailing list. The exercise asked us to remember a time when someone's faith made a difference in our lives.
"Hey, when are you going to take your writing seriously?"
"I spend every spare minute I have writing," I replied as my fingers danced across the keys. "How much more seriously can I take it?"
I was in the middle of creating yet another story that would be consigned to the bit bucket the minute it was finished. Home from work for the Fourth of July holiday, I had been working from the moment I finished my morning coffee. My husband came into the spare bedroom we had turned into a home office and sat down next to me.
"You had your first non-fiction article published almost fifteen years ago. How many short stories or novels have you submitted?"
"None."
"Exactly my point. When you decided to write non-fiction, you sent it out so people could buy it. With fiction, you write the stories and then leave them sitting on your hard drive. Nobody ever sees them."
"They're not good enough. I'm not ready," I launched into the familiar list of excuses. The truth was that my first two programming articles, written on speculation, were accepted. After that, I wrote on assignment. Now I was afraid of the rejection. Finally, as my list sputtered to a stop, he leaned over and kissed me. "I think you're wrong," he said. "In fact, I'm so convinced that your stories are good, and that you can be a successful writer, that I've put my money where my mouth is."
He placed a check and a piece of paper on the desk in front of me. Curious, I picked them up. The check, for one hundred and twenty-five dollars, was made out to the Romance Writers of America. The paper was a completed membership application that only needed my signature.
I don't believe in magic, not really, but sometimes it takes someone else's belief to allow you to believe in yourself. We mailed the application on July Fourth, Independence Day. By the end of July I had submitted several stories, and by the middle of October, I had made my first sale. I still think that if my husband hadn't made such a concrete declaration of belief, I would still be dreaming about writing fiction. I may not be able to quit my day job yet, but I'm on my way.
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