"The Edifying Thoughts of a Young Writer"

"A pen and paper can serve an awful lot. A pen and paper can declare war or order peace. A pen and paper can unite two in matrimony and equally separate them. A pen and paper can build cities and equally destroy them. We, as writers, could rule the world."
-RL, 14th July 1981
Like many writers, I keep journals. In my case, I began while still a child, and was especially prolific during my teen years. Sadly, only one of these has survived to the present day, what I called "Summerbook 1981"; this was the journal I started after graduating high school. It really wasn't a journal so much as a notebook, a catch-all for all of my ideas. There are poems, songs, sketches and ideas, all crammed into its pages. The covers have long since vanished, and the pages are heavily stained with age. But this is one of the only surviving links to my childhood.
One of the early entries was a little paragraph titled "The Edifying Thoughts of a Young Writer". As I sit here reading it, I find the clarity of purpose amazing, especially at that point in my life. I was fairly sure what direction I wanted to go; I wanted to write.
Not too bad for an 18 year old.
Going over the pages, I find that the idea of writing, for me, was a natural one. I'd been writing fiction since I was thirteen, perhaps earlier. But that little paragraph strikes a chord in me that is at once sad and uplifting. I knew, with certainty, that I was to be a writer. Instead, I kept taking detours. It has taken almost twenty years to get back to what I wanted to do to begin with.
To anyone who reads this, take note.
There is a moral in this. Sometimes, your first instincts are the right ones.