Starving for Perfection

I wrote the short story Starving for Perfection originally in High School. Writing the story itself was a very raw and emotional experience. I had written a series of short stories for my creative writing class that year, all of which meant something to me. They were not just written to pass the class, I knew I could do that with no real issues. Instead, I used the class to my advantage in order to further my style, get real critique, and gain a few readers, some of which didn't even like to read. One of the stories was just titled, "Starvation." When I had finished writing it, it was over 20 pages long, stapled three times down the side with a poem attached to the front. It was placed in a bright yellow folder with a picture of an anorexic model on the front. The student teacher returned it to me after grading it and said she had never read something so profound by a student. The Creative Writing teacher agreed and said I had found my calling. I laughed it off as a compliment and nothing more, only to start selling copies of that story as well as a few others for $5 a piece around the school.

To say the school was less than pleased would be an understatement. I was called to the office where I was sat down as my parents were called and briefed on the situation. I didn't even live at home at the time. It was explained that me selling copies of my short stories would be dealt with the same way as gambling and selling drugs, which made no sense to me whatsoever. The school had been trying to get these students to read and here I was making it happen. Luckily, my parents also saw it as bullshit and the so-called crime was reduced to a detention and I had to stop selling and passing around my stories. Had they been about unicorns and bunnies I'm sure the school wouldn't have given my no good deed a second glance, but they were about drug use, anorexia, and abuse. You know, the real things people deal with, especially young adults.

Fast forward to 6 year later, I hadn't thought about those stories. I had gotten married and had a son. My dad came to visit me toting a gigantic plastic bin filled to the brim with my art work, folders, journals, stories and so much more. I went through everything in the bin before coming across that same yellow folder with the anorexic girl on the cover. I had forgotten all about it. My heart skipped a beat as I sat cross legged on my floor and re-read all of my short stories. Afterword I stared at the wall with my brows furrowed and my mouth open as a strong realization struck me. This was what I was meant to do. There's no way I couldn't make these into real books and publish them. I had to.

And so when I was able to leave my full time job, I was able to for the first time sit at my computer and transform a short story into a full length book in the summer of 2016. For more than 8 hours a day I worked on the book. In 2017 it was published by the Amazon company, Createspace. I had contemplated sending it to a major publishing house, but I was absolutely certain I didn't want anybody telling me what needed edited out, or what wasn't good enough to be in my book. I was dead set on the book being written in free verse. I wanted the raw emotion. I wanted every secret and experience I had while being anorexic in that book, and written in my own words.

When my copy arrived in the mail it was an absolutely surreal moment, and it was at that exact moment I knew this would be my career. I am so excited to continue writing books for you to read, and I hope you do!

You can purchase my book, Starving for Perfection, here