When a child is asked what they want to be when they grow up, they tend to answer with something fantastical: an astronaut, a professional baseball player, a mermaid.  But me?  When I was asked in the first grade what I wanted to be, I looked up through my wild, blonde curls and said, “Author and illustrator.”

The problem being a six year old with a reasonable, achievable goal in life means that if you fail and do not become that thing it is because you were not good enough.  It means that you didn’t try hard enough or didn’t have what it takes to fulfill your six year old self’s ambitions.  If I never became a published author it was because I didn’t push myself, not because I had legs where my mermaid tail should be, or because I couldn’t jump high enough to get to the moon.

So I wrote.  I fell in love with words and how they sound, the way they can read like a song when the right words are put together just the right way.  I took history assignments and made them poetic,  english classes became my haven to craft the perfect sentence and make it sing.

I did other things, followed other interests, but I always came back to writing.  Creative writing journals, poetry contests and short story competitions peppered my youth.  When a boy broke my heart, I wrote. When my sister had cancer, I wrote.  When the shooting turned me inside out, I wrote.  I didn’t keep a diary about myself, I translated what was happening into fictional short stories where I discovered how to solve my problems through my own characters. I worked through my harrowing teenage emotions by writing poetry.  I comforted myself by finding the most beautiful words I knew to describe the ugliest situations.

The other things – the alternate dreams – never had the passion behind them to make them real.  When I left for college I thought I was going to become a teacher.  Then maybe a pastry chef.  Possibly culinary school was in the cards.  But writing was the siren that kept calling me to the depths, it was the school of creative writing where I earned my degree.

It is so clear now, as I chronicle how words have been my imaginary friends over all these years, holding my hand and keeping me company even when no one else could see them.  And the dream of becoming a published author and illustator has been looming, just below the surface, reminding me of my potential, of the goal I set in Mrs. Kompinski’s first grade classroom.

Thirty four year old Katie hid from the accusing glare of her six year old self.  What are you waiting for?  What is taking so long?  It was just never right.  Why would people read a book that I write?  It will take too long.  I’m scared.  I don’t want to hear if people don’t like it.  Getting something published is HARD.

I had a thousand reasons not to write a book.

But then it was my turn to be mystery reader in my daughter’s classroom.  I had to choose a book. What would Addie want me to read?  What would make her proud?  Maybe I should write one to read to them.  A lightbulb. Maybe I’ll illustate it too. Bright light. I’ll make it a surprise for her.

Three days later I had written and illustrated my first book.

The kids loved the story so much they all wanted a copy.  Now I had to figure out how to publish the book.

I cleaned up the story and streamlined the words, then re-wrote them, then went over them again.  I meticulously drew a little girl that looks like my little girl, I added fairies and cotton candy clouds and all the things in my little girl’s dreams.

And then I went over the words again and again until I had them memorized and perfect. The illustrations were done, carefully shaded, clipped and inserted into the manuscript.

I wrote a book.

A book.  Something that people can hold and share with friends and put on their bookshelves.  Something that my parents can say, “My daughter wrote a book and it’s on Amazon” and they can beam with pride and whip out their smartphones and prove it.

There is so much satisfaction…and pride… that I have finally done it.  It is not complete, now I need to write more, as if I could ever stop writing.

But the best part?  Even better than seeing my name on a cover of a book? There is an entire classroom full of second graders who have started writing their own books.  An entire classroom of Addie’s classmates who may have had their lifelong goals and dreams sparked by this thing that I did.

I am an author and illustrator.  My dream has come true.