The Beginning

Anne was a renowned writer in her time. She was reminiscing, looking at her past when she was twenty, her parents wanted her to become a doctor as her father was, she had no interest in saving lives by surgery. Instead she thought she can help encourage the poor souls walking on the earth losing hope by her writing. She developed a strange addiction towards the language when she was in her high school. She did not compete in any writing contest, took writing, literature lessons but she had that in her. She was like how Ramanujam was in math but in English. She had that natural talent which she wanted to grow but her parents were against her views always. The day came, she graduated from her high school and she came home with all joy showing up in her smile. Her parents welcomed her with a warm proud hug.

They sat down at the table for the dinner which was served by her mother. She has made her daughter’s favorite Devil’s Food Cake, which was a rich, moist chocolate layered cake. Anne went for the cake first, her mother pushing her eager hands away saving it for the last.

“You did it, what now?” Her father said.

She smiled a bit about his complement and her smile faded immediately processing the question he had posted.

She spoke up to her father, “Father, I want to become a writer.”

Her father smiled at her and said “That was funny till last night but today you ought to start getting serious.”

She couldn’t believe that her father still thought that her desire to become a writer was a joke. There was silence at the table for a good fifteen minutes. Then she finally broke the silence, she said “I’m leaving to south tomorrow, my friend there will help me with my future. I’ll leave you the phone number just in case.”

She went to her room; she didn’t even touch her favorite dessert. That night she decided some things that she had to do. She had to become a well-known writer, she wanted fame, she wanted her father to not consider her a joke anymore, and she wanted to prove the world that she had what it takes. She sat by her window looking at the moon blankly.
Anne is now forty and has written three books so far, novels that have been one of the bestselling each year. She knew she proved her point, she lived up to her dream, now she is not a writer next door but she is now a world famous writer who has just won the Man Booker award for the best writer ten years ago.

Since then she didn’t write even single papered short story. She has been spending her life with the partner, who is also a writer, her favorite writer, he was in his forties. He was her favorite because he didn’t write for any reason, he didn’t want to prove the world something, and he didn’t want people to look up to him and want to take a photograph with him. He had cancer, yet his stories were full of joy and filled the readers with laughter, those laughs, those words had life in them.
She looked back at her life and what did she achieve? She felt she was just being selfish at writing, she wanted her father to take back what he said; she felt she has lost the love for writing already. She decided to write something again, something for her love, the love she had for writing.

To start with, why not start big? She thought she can write a novel. She didn’t decide what to write but she started anyway. For the first time in her life she put much thought in how her acknowledgement page should be. Should she thank her parents? Should she be thankful for the motivation of his partner? She thought for a while and went with; “To my father, my mother, my husband – with love and thanks” She thought it was simple and right. Now the tough part she had to decide the title or what she has to write about. At first she thought she had to write the first thing that popped in her mind, she closed her eyes, she thought love.

Love it is, she went with that. She penned a paragraph about a girl who just lost herself in losing her love and the girl is walking down a lonely road to find herself. She took the last sip from the coffee mug which was empty now, so she decided to call up her friend who lived nearby to grab a cup of coffee then she would spend the night with herself and the television shows. This was the routine, she wrote two or three pages a day, she wasn’t really into the story yet; often she would feel off and she would go out to get some air.

Later that night she got a call, it was from the hospital, she ran straight up to the ER and she heard that her husband was found crashed on the sidewalk of a street and has been admitted there by the good hearts of the public. Her life almost ended when she heard the doctors words “We tried but the cancer took him away”. She felt as if the last and only hope in her life has been lost, she wanted him to guide her in her life, through her work but he is no more. She knew that he would have wanted her to carry on with her writing keeping alive his legacy; she knew that’s exactly what she was supposed to do. She went to his funeral where she laid a bunch of freshly bought lilies on his casket where she paid her last respect.

She heard a feeble sound and yet audible only to her as she stood up watching the name Nathan Hobbs, Loving husband and writer engraved on his headstone. She knew what she was going to do with her life, she was going to write, and she was going to write till life gives her a permanent break.

She went straight home, no tears to shed or nothing to do, she went straight up to her study, took her book of papers started to pen without any thinking. She knew her life begins now, at that moment all she felt was she had to write for her love, she loved what she was going to do. “With all my love, to Nathan.” she began.