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Road Less Travelled
#WritcoStoryPrompt89
"Set your life on a different path." Frame a motivating tale to go along with the phrase.
I was an eighteen-year-old New York girl, a heiress to a fortune. My parents were the wealthiest people in Brooklyn, and by far the most influential. As the youngest child, I had watched my older brothers and sisters leave for college with a mixture of sorrow and happiness. Every single one of us were expected to follow a very concise career path.
We were supposed to be prosecuting attorneys.
My great-grandfather started the tradition, as my father told the story. He was said to be the greatest lawyer in New York State. Then, as generations wore on, more men and women in our family followed in his footsteps. Now if we don't keep the tradition, it has already been established that we will be cut out of our inheritance.
And so off to Harvard university I went, with every intention of working my hardest and graduating from law school at the top of my class. I had high hopes at first, I never second-guessed my calling as an attorney.
Until the day I found my true passion.
It was November 18th, 2019, 9:56 P.M. I was in my dorm room studying for a midterm exam I had the next day. Then an email arrived on my laptop. I sighed when I was it was from the school. Reluctantly, I opened it and immediately saw it was from my English professor. He was reminding me that I had a paper due....tomorrow. As I read those last few lines, I nearly fell out of my chair. It was a 50 page short story we had been assigned to write last week! I had never given writing two thoughts, so I had allowed the assignment to slide right out my mind. Now I had to write THE WHOLE THING, tonight! The email said the story could be about absolutely anything- as long as it was fictitious.
I frantically opened Pinterest. My mind was completely void of ideas, so I hoped I might stumble on some sort of inspiration. I prayed so, anyways. I searched fiction writing ideas, and within seconds my screen was filled with suggestions. I clicked on the first one my eyes landed on. It said "write a story where a private investigator is hired to find a girl that has been missing for thirty years, only to find that SHE is the missing child and her current "parents" kidnapped her at birth."
Having little choice and an even smaller amount of time, I picked up my lead pencil and began scribbling furiously. The first five pages were torture. Pure torture. My brain wouldn't function, and I had no clue how to convey the message I needed to get across.
Then my mind started working.
Suddenly, it was almost as if I was IN my character's life. The words started coming, so did the plot. Before I knew it, the clock struck one. I laid my pencil down and smiled, feeling quite accomplished with myself. The story was pretty good, I thought. I just hoped my professor felt the same way.
The following week, when Professor Maddox was passing out our grades, he stopped at my desk, a solemn expression etched into his face. He slammed my story down on the desktop and gravely demanded "Blakely, stay after class. I want to speak with you."
I looked after him as he walked away, confusion flooding my mind. I was even more concerned when I looked down at the grade stamped in red ink on my humble story. 100. What did I do wrong? I wondered silently to myself.
After class, when I spoke to him, I was shocked by what he told me. He asked if I had ever written a book or a story before. I replied that, no, I hadn't. Then he smiled and said "Well, you should write more of them, Blakely." I was then dismissed.
During the next few weeks, I couldn't get his words off my mind. Now I felt a burning in my soul I had never felt before. I craved writing, I needed to write more than I needed to sleep. I started plotting a crime fiction novel. Within a year's time, it was finished. I hired an agent to help me get it out there, and he pitched it to several large publishing houses, including HarperCollins and The New York Times. You can imagine my surprise when, two months later, I received word that BOTH companies had accepted my manuscript. Immediately, I signed the contracts, made a few modifications, and prepared the book, which I had named Bulletproof, for publication.
In my junior year of college, Bulletproof made it onto the market. And almost instantly sales went up. Before long, it was climbing the New York Times bestselling list.
On November 18th, three years after the night I had discovered writing was my passion, it hit #1 on the list. Only a few days later, I got a call from my mother.
Now, I had never told my family about my writing, they would have only considered it a waste of time and effort, both of which I should put into my career as an attorney. Knowing they wouldn't approve, I had kept the exciting news to myself. And now I had to pay for it.
My parents yelled over the phone that they couldn't believe THEIR own daughter had engaged in something as frivolous as writing a novel! My mother threatened that I permanently quit writing and focuse on law school, or I would be cut out of my inheritance. At her words, my stomach lurched. I didn't want to lose the money that was rightfully mine, but I couldn't bare the thought of giving up my writing career that was only getting started. It was in that moment I knew exactly what I had to do. I told my parents to go ahead and cut me out, because I was taking my own path in life, the one that was meant for me.
I DID lose my inheritance, but it was worth it. Today I'm a #1 New York Times bestselling author. And, best of all, I found my passion, because I chose a different path than the one I was expected to choose in life.
Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this please like and comment!
#Life&Life #story #Happiness
© Shelby Pryor
"Set your life on a different path." Frame a motivating tale to go along with the phrase.
I was an eighteen-year-old New York girl, a heiress to a fortune. My parents were the wealthiest people in Brooklyn, and by far the most influential. As the youngest child, I had watched my older brothers and sisters leave for college with a mixture of sorrow and happiness. Every single one of us were expected to follow a very concise career path.
We were supposed to be prosecuting attorneys.
My great-grandfather started the tradition, as my father told the story. He was said to be the greatest lawyer in New York State. Then, as generations wore on, more men and women in our family followed in his footsteps. Now if we don't keep the tradition, it has already been established that we will be cut out of our inheritance.
And so off to Harvard university I went, with every intention of working my hardest and graduating from law school at the top of my class. I had high hopes at first, I never second-guessed my calling as an attorney.
Until the day I found my true passion.
It was November 18th, 2019, 9:56 P.M. I was in my dorm room studying for a midterm exam I had the next day. Then an email arrived on my laptop. I sighed when I was it was from the school. Reluctantly, I opened it and immediately saw it was from my English professor. He was reminding me that I had a paper due....tomorrow. As I read those last few lines, I nearly fell out of my chair. It was a 50 page short story we had been assigned to write last week! I had never given writing two thoughts, so I had allowed the assignment to slide right out my mind. Now I had to write THE WHOLE THING, tonight! The email said the story could be about absolutely anything- as long as it was fictitious.
I frantically opened Pinterest. My mind was completely void of ideas, so I hoped I might stumble on some sort of inspiration. I prayed so, anyways. I searched fiction writing ideas, and within seconds my screen was filled with suggestions. I clicked on the first one my eyes landed on. It said "write a story where a private investigator is hired to find a girl that has been missing for thirty years, only to find that SHE is the missing child and her current "parents" kidnapped her at birth."
Having little choice and an even smaller amount of time, I picked up my lead pencil and began scribbling furiously. The first five pages were torture. Pure torture. My brain wouldn't function, and I had no clue how to convey the message I needed to get across.
Then my mind started working.
Suddenly, it was almost as if I was IN my character's life. The words started coming, so did the plot. Before I knew it, the clock struck one. I laid my pencil down and smiled, feeling quite accomplished with myself. The story was pretty good, I thought. I just hoped my professor felt the same way.
The following week, when Professor Maddox was passing out our grades, he stopped at my desk, a solemn expression etched into his face. He slammed my story down on the desktop and gravely demanded "Blakely, stay after class. I want to speak with you."
I looked after him as he walked away, confusion flooding my mind. I was even more concerned when I looked down at the grade stamped in red ink on my humble story. 100. What did I do wrong? I wondered silently to myself.
After class, when I spoke to him, I was shocked by what he told me. He asked if I had ever written a book or a story before. I replied that, no, I hadn't. Then he smiled and said "Well, you should write more of them, Blakely." I was then dismissed.
During the next few weeks, I couldn't get his words off my mind. Now I felt a burning in my soul I had never felt before. I craved writing, I needed to write more than I needed to sleep. I started plotting a crime fiction novel. Within a year's time, it was finished. I hired an agent to help me get it out there, and he pitched it to several large publishing houses, including HarperCollins and The New York Times. You can imagine my surprise when, two months later, I received word that BOTH companies had accepted my manuscript. Immediately, I signed the contracts, made a few modifications, and prepared the book, which I had named Bulletproof, for publication.
In my junior year of college, Bulletproof made it onto the market. And almost instantly sales went up. Before long, it was climbing the New York Times bestselling list.
On November 18th, three years after the night I had discovered writing was my passion, it hit #1 on the list. Only a few days later, I got a call from my mother.
Now, I had never told my family about my writing, they would have only considered it a waste of time and effort, both of which I should put into my career as an attorney. Knowing they wouldn't approve, I had kept the exciting news to myself. And now I had to pay for it.
My parents yelled over the phone that they couldn't believe THEIR own daughter had engaged in something as frivolous as writing a novel! My mother threatened that I permanently quit writing and focuse on law school, or I would be cut out of my inheritance. At her words, my stomach lurched. I didn't want to lose the money that was rightfully mine, but I couldn't bare the thought of giving up my writing career that was only getting started. It was in that moment I knew exactly what I had to do. I told my parents to go ahead and cut me out, because I was taking my own path in life, the one that was meant for me.
I DID lose my inheritance, but it was worth it. Today I'm a #1 New York Times bestselling author. And, best of all, I found my passion, because I chose a different path than the one I was expected to choose in life.
Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this please like and comment!
#Life&Life #story #Happiness
© Shelby Pryor
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