The best first date? Yeah, it was this one. To this day, Chris and I always talk about it endlessly. At some level, we realize that most people wouldn’t appreciate the certain events…and how it demonstrated how we complemented each other, our strengths and weaknesses.

But the point is, I decided to rewrite the entire thing with a bit of flair and reorganization. One thing that I have learned in the past few years in studying the craft of writing is this: a writer’s job is to organize the words on the page.

Which matches my professional (paying) work. Design. It’s not about telling the story as it happened as I quickly wrote in November 2006. Rather it’s to lead the reader down a journey. A reveal at the beginning. A challenge, a question, a curiosity in the middle. Then to an ending that is both satisfying and complete. Whether the characters as portrayed is true or not…is not relevant to the piece. At least in terms of literary work. So I focused on that, trying to bring the scenes and dialogue to life.

An instructor once said, “Who cares about diary entries? They’re the worst. We as the reader care about the journey.”

So that’s what I did. At least I hope that’s what draws people in. Until I realized that the “competition” was more about popularity than quality of the reading (which translates to good marketing copy in the first few lines than a good story). Well, that completely sucks as the winning piece may be of a diary entry or a shallow story that someone famous tells. But I submitted my story anyway in hope.

And this is where I sell out (to nobody): Go and click “recommend”!