Danielle As A Writer

Danielle, a stunningly beautiful dermatologist wanted more from her life than simply being a busy doctor. She yearned for a family – a husband and children. But she knew that was not going to happen anytime soon. She was in love with a dedicated trauma surgeon who habitually worked seventy hours a week. He did not have many free evenings to spend with her, and certainly didn’t have enough time in his schedule for a family. She needed an outlet, a hobby…something to fill the lonely hours. She turned to writing.

“The only paperwork Danielle really enjoyed these days was creating personalities and situations for her book’s fictional characters. She had begun a mystery novel a few months ago to help fill her long, lonely evenings when Alex was unavailable. It had started as a hobby but soon became her favorite pastime.”

Danielle began to retreat more and more, even neglecting Alex in favor of the characters she wrote about. “It was hard for him (Alex) to fathom that she could spend so many hours absorbed in the lives of the fictitious characters she’d invented. He was dying to know what was so engrossing about them and he asked more than once to read what she’d written. She was adamant that he would have to wait until the book was finished. She would not even allow him to know the title.”

This obsession with writing was disconcerting to Alex, as he was used to being the center of her universe. Now fictional characters that he knew nothing about, demanded her attention. “She had been working on the book for four months and hoped to finish it before she and Alex took a long-needed vacation to the Cape. The thought of actually finishing it was exhilarating and gave her a huge sense of accomplishment and satisfaction. Writing had become her passion; she was already toying with an idea for a second book.”

When she had a terrible fight with Alex, she was unable to write. “In the past, writing had been an escape from her day-to-day problems; she could lose herself in her character’s dilemmas instead of her own problems. She sat back down at the computer, hoping for inspiration. She had placed a clue at the end of her first book that would allow her to write a sequel. But no words came.

Danielle was finally satisfied with her novel, Forever Grapes, and gave it to a friend to proof read and edit. Then she began work on another story. However, when she discovered that her twin sister, Darcy, had already written and published a best seller, she was stupefied. “When Danielle saw a copy of Twins, in Alex’s drawer, it was like being smacked in the face with her own failures and Darcy’s accomplishments.”

That was the point where Danielle began an emotional spiral downhill and writing could not pull her out of it. She had sent her book to three publishers with little expectation of success. She finally had to admit that, although she loved writing, she did not have Darcy’s knack for telling a story or her gift of prose. She received two rejections early on and was waiting for the third, resigned to the fact that she would never become a bestselling author. None the less, spurred on by Alex and Darcy’s support, she continued to write. She had matured and was no longer jealous of her sister’s fame. Finally, the third publisher did offer Danielle a contract, and she was thrilled, but was not expecting to set any sales records.

Darcy saw something in Danielle’s writing that Danielle herself had not. Darcy knew that if writing novels was not the right genre for Danielle, then there would be another. She just had to find it. She was too talented to keep her work from the world.”

Accepting that she was not going to be a great novelist was the turning point in Danielle’s writing career. She did in fact, find a new genre and was able to make her words bring real meaning and comfort to thousands of readers. She developed and nurtured an expressive writing program initially for cancer patients and eventually its concept spread to anyone suffering. The value of the program she eventually named “Healing Words” was immense and its success grows even more astounding in the sequel to Despicable Lies, entitled Second Chances

Danielle learned what so many others have had to struggle with. Sometimes what we think we want or deserve is not right for us. There is a better option or alternative out there. Whoever said “When one door closes, another opens” was 100% correct. Danielle was able to push that other door wide open.

Until my next inspiration…ciao