A Trip For Slowey
Scott Benner
Some of the authors that write for my publisher, Spry Publishing are sharing stories of what writing means to them - it sounded like fun so I thought that I would join in.
I wrote my first book in grade school for something called the Young Authors Conference. That book took first place in my class - remember when everyone didn’t win - and I recall being ushered to the front of the classroom where my teacher spoke a few words about my accomplishment and then handed me what she considered to be my prize, a blue ribbon.
But that ribbon wasn’t the prize.
The next day our school librarian collected all of the winning titles from throughout the building and put them on her book trolley. The trolley would visit each class and students were given a chance to read the winning books in their classrooms. This was my prize!
I loved to imagine that someone was curled up with my book, ‘A Trip for Slowey’. You see Slowly was a turtle from a small pond who dreamt of something better, but when he took off to find excitement and adventure… all he found was the striking lesson that there was no place like home. I wrote that when I was six years old, I had to dig it out of a closet just now to remember what it was about because my only memory of that book was the joy that I felt when I imagined it being read.
Many years later I began to write about my life as the father of a child who lives with type 1 diabetes. If I had to act as my own psychiatrist for a moment, I’d say that I probably began to write online about type 1 as an outlet for my emotional pain. Soon after the blog went live, I heard back from one of my first readers and their message was one that informs what I do to this day. My sharing was helping her. I wrote something that she identified with. The knowledge that she wasn’t as alone in the world as she felt, was physically and emotionally freeing. I finally found the joy from my childhood as an adult, and it’s a joy that only comes from sharing my thoughts in an intimate way with others. Writing allows that intimacy unlike any other form of communication. Written words follow an unspoken path that begins in the writer’s heart, and with some luck, ends in the reader’s.
Though I don’t want to give short-shrift to ‘A Trip for Slowey’ and other elementary school award winners like, ‘Star Wanted to be a Star and ‘Grammy and the Green Ford’, eventually the blog led to my first book.
As a child, my only goal for writing was to get my book on that trolley. Today, I just hope that something that’s floating around in my head can create a moment of sameness with another person. I’ve seen now first-hand what that connection looks like, I no longer need to imagine someone reading my words. There is no purer feeling then the return I experience when exposing my thoughts in writing, leads to a stranger find themselves in those words.
That energy takes away my fear and fills the void with a satisfaction and warmth that it impossible to replicate. It recharges me so that I can do it again. Writing is my own personal self-sustain engine that powers me so I that can try to empower you.
Spry Publishing is leading the way in diabetes resources: check out Spry’s diabetes titles at www.sprypub.com/diabetes/ . Hurry! If you order in November you’ll receive 50% off your book by using the code “Diabetes50”.
