Lizzie
slumped. She was too tired to write. Her books didn’t matter. She looked at
them in disappointment. They were fluff, trivial, nonsense, flat and
emotionless. There was nothing to them. She remembered what her father had
always told her: If you write, write well. Write books that will improve the
mind and heart of the reader. Had she done that? Had she created noble works or
something beautiful that would change a reader’s life? No. She saw her books and
saw them for what they were: low, stupid, teenage trash. They were the sort of
books Amanda Branchflower would have read during the ninth grade. They were
silly and shallow. Like my life, Lizzie thought dismally. Her whole life seemed
to be slipping away from her without ever really meaning anything. She suddenly
remembered what she had set out to do: make a difference. Improve the world and
change the lives of the people around her. She hadn’t done any of it. If
anything she’d made her own life and their lives worse with those silly,
popular books. Feeling empty and frustrated beyond anything she’d ever known,
Lizzie stood and took each book from its prized position on her shelves and
tumbled them away into a drawer.
“There.
It ends now.” She shrugged, reasoning with herself. “I’ll change. If I can’t
write something that’s actually worth reading, well then I won’t write at all.”
She stood and hurried to the front hall, slipping on her overcoat and scarf. She
snatched an umbrella and hustled out into the blustery November night. The
first of the Christmas lights were going up and the city was gleaming with a
magical glow.
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