To Whom It May Concern:

Dearest Reader,

When I picture you, you're at a desk. Hopefully you are fortunate enough to be elsewhere, like under a 100 year old tree in a part of the world where the breeze is warm, the grass needs cutting, and the feel of the bark at your back is as hospitable and trustworthy as it could be at 100 years of age. But under my suspicion, we are in someway similar to each other. It's more likely you are contained between four walls in a slightly uncomfortable chair and you freeze even at the thought of going back outside because the snow ball from hell came back from it's spring vacation, however short it had been. That being said, I guess my hope for you is that within your four walls, there is a window.

Now that I have you here, I have a confession. My name isn't Ann Cost, shocker, I know. As much as I wish it was, Ann Cost is actually a character I had created in a NaNoWriMo tribute in high school for my English class. I have now adopted the name as my pen name.

The text she inhabited only consisted of twelve pages. Within those twelve, she was daring, witty, and honestly, the best version of myself. She would sleuth along side a character named Jimmy Devly, a young writer searching for inspiration, and Morgan Gren, who was sort of a sheep, truth be told. These twelve pages were crafted in freedom because the only way my teacher could grade it was by word count. (This many words gets you a C and so on.) But the longer I wrote, the more attached to the characters I became and my mission evolved. If I was going to write, I was going to write well. 

And so I edit and rewrite. I learned I could say more with fewer more vivid words but, that left me with fewer words. I emailed it to my teacher anyway. By this time, because of my editing and rewriting, the month was over and I had to turn it in anyway. 

Feeling the weight of my grade being, for a lack of a better word, doomed, I went to bed dreading make up assignments and feeling so stupid for not just repeating what everyone else did. Which was what I thought of as very very very very lame. 

The next day I received an email. It was from Mr. Palmerton my English teacher about my NaNoWriMo assignment.

Good work. You are very talented. I enjoyed what I read.

Your grade = B

I know you were a bit short of the word count for this, but I think you deserve an upgrade. 

That was it. Having never getting praise from a teacher in my whole adolescent career before this email, it opened a window for me. I can do what I love really well and it was different. 

This is how I connect to the world, to all the people just like me in contents of their four walls. I hope for all of you that you have a window too. 

Sincerely,

Ann Cost