The Story Inside Me

Our pastor quoted Maya Angelou in one of her recent sermons:  "There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you."  One could interpret these sage words in a variety of ways, but I heard them in the literal sense.  Last month, I took the plunge and submitted the initial entry to a memoir contest sponsored by AARP, Huffington Post and Simon & Schuster.  The deadline for the contest is today. After considerable urging by others to tell my untold story of everything from growing up with reptiles to my serpentine journey from illness to illness, I did just that. My story's on paper. The competition for this contest will be fierce and I have no expectations of my story reaching finalist status, but the action of putting the initial, 5,000-word entry of my personal story out there for the world to read propelled me to continue writing.  For the past several weekends, I have been adding to my story.  The work isn't done yet, but I'm making progress.  Should my book reach finalist status, I would need to have an additional 15,000 to 45,000 words written by the middle of June anyway.  So, we'll see what comes of it. For now, I have the satisfaction of knowing that the story inside me is no longer untold.