I picked up a book from my local Feldheim store, with a rather interesting title: The Cliff Line. Now, I've never heard of a cliff line- sounding like a row of cliffs, but the back cover sounded interesting, and so I bought it. It's by someone known as M. Wiseman.
It was written in present tense- making it a tough read, since I'm very much used to past tense, but it was interesting, and fairly well written. Then I turned to the back, about the author, and learnt that this author was in seminary this past year.
That makes her younger than me. Younger, and she's already a published author. It seems she wrote the book in 11th grade, making her someone who's written a full fledged novel at a very young age.
There are other authors I know of who are like that- Christopher Paolini, that Eragon sensation writer, is a young guy. But this is one of the first that I've read from a young frum girl.
In one way, I'm so pleased that someone took the step like this. To go out, show their talent, and prove that we young people, young frum people, can head out and write novels, and do things, wherever our talent takes us.
On the other hand, the green monster of jealousy pops up. I write, I enjoy writing, but I've never attempted to publish a novel. Maybe I could, maybe I couldn't. But this girl went out and did it.
Sometimes we have to follow our dreams. R' Paysach Krohn, in one of his books, mentions that he wrote the famous book on Bris Milah. A well known Mohel came up to him and said, "I could have written that book." R' Krohn remarked to himself that that Mohel could have written that book, but didn't. If we don't take advantage of the times, to follow our dreams and goals, then they will slip past us. It's not the could have, should have, would have that counts, but rather the actualization.
So go out and achieve! Who knows, I may write a book someday too!
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