Touched by Juliet

A couple of years ago my wife and I were standing amongst the throngs of tourists beneath Juliet’s balcony in Verona. While the others were clamoring to get their pictures made touching the breast of Juliet’s statue for luck, I found myself wondering, “If I was to try to write a story, my own Romeo and Juliet, how could I supply the tension Shakespeare supplied to his young lovers vis-a-vis their feuding families?”

Knowing that someone starting out to write should write about what that person knows, and being from the American South, the obvious occurred to me while standing there in Juliet’s courtyard. What better to provide tension between young lovers than southern racial mores? Idea’s immediately flooded through my mind, so when we arrived home I wrote my first story since grade school, an inter-racial lover’s tragedy in the spirit of Shakespeare’s. I have written many stories since, but it remains my longest, and my wife says my best. I was inspired when I wrote it as I have been for few others, almost as though Juliet was pushing me to tell the story she had inspired.

My wife would lie in bed at night reading what I had written during the day. I had mentioned to her years previously that I enjoyed writing, and had been told many years ago that I had some skill, but I could see in her excitement that what I was writing was pretty good, which only encouraged me to continue, and to try to write better.

Since then writing has become a fun hobby for me. I can say that I would not bother if there was no one to read what I write, so I appreciate this site. I can usually turn out a short story for my wife and my Prose friends to read before breakfast, and I enjoy reading the stories they share as well. I cannot say that writing has “helped me“ per se, but I think Prose has helped me in that it gives me insight into what others like to read... what “works well”, and what doesn’t.

It is great that those inspired to write, particularly young writer’s, have sites like Prose today where they can find encouragement and feedback for their feelings and ideals. There is no need for you to wait, like I did, until you are fifty years old to “find your Juliet”. I would have given anything to have had a place like this to bare my soul thirty-five years ago.

So, to those who believe that social media is a bad thing, “perhaps you have just not found the “write” site for you”. Write on! (And read a little, too ;)