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1 " I built an idea in my head of the hero I wanted to be, a grab bag of traits from heroes, villains, and side characters. I did not have book role models, I had book blueprints.But there remained a huge gap between the person I wanted to be and the person who I was. This was because no matter how many book blueprints I had, as much as I wanted to make myself the hero of my own life, it didn’t matter as long as I kept telling the story wrong.Nowadays, as a storyteller, I know what the problem was. I had all the elements I needed to tell a good story. But I was telling it the wrong way, so I could never get to the ending I wanted.If you tell yourself you’re a winner, you know what kind of story you’re telling, and you will march toward that... Likewise, if you tell yourself you’re a loser, you’ve made that your story, and you will march toward that instead. The same setbacks could happen in the loser’s story as in the winner’s story, but the self-defined loser would let them be proof that they were never going to be anything.Here’s the story I was telling myself back when I was little edible child waiting to be carried away by hawks and making OCD rituals for herself: once upon a time, there was a girl who was afraid of everything. When I was 16, I realized that I knew what this story looked like and how it ended, and it wasn’t the life I wanted for myself. If I wanted my ending to look different, I needed to change the kind of story I was telling about myself. I needed to shape my events into a different genre: once upon a time, there was a woman who was afraid of nothing. At age 16, I legally changed my name from my birthname — Heidi — to one I thought sounded like the hero I wanted to be: Maggie. And I vowed that I would never be afraid of anything ever again.Did it work? No, of course not. Not right away. But it became a mission statement, my hero’s journey. "
2 " When I was a child, an angel came to say,A true friend is coming my warrior to sweep you away,It won’t be easy the path because it leads through hell,But if you’re faithful, it will be the greatest story to tell,You will move God’s daughters to a place of hope,Your story will teach everyone there is nothing they can’t cope,You will suffer a lot, but not one tear will you waste,Because for all that you do for me, you will be graced,For I am bringing you someone that wants to travel your trail,Someone you already met when you passed through heaven’s veil,A warrior, a friend that whispers your heart’s song,Someone that will run with you and pull your spirit along,Don’t you see the timing was love's fated throw,Because I put you both there to help one another grow,I am the writer of all great stories your chapters were written by me,You suffered, you cried because I needed you to see,That your faith in my ending goes far beyond two,It was going to change more hearts than both of you knew,So hush my child and wait for my loving hand,The last chapter is not written and still in the sand,It is up to you to finish, before the tide washes it away,All that is in your heart, I’ve put there for you to say,This is not about winning, loss or pain,I made you the way you are because true love stories are insane,I wrote you in heaven as I sat on its sandy shore,You know with all of my heart I loved you both more,There is no better ending two people seeing each other's heart,Together your spirits will never drift apart,Because two kindred spirits is what I made you to be,The waves and beach crashing together because of-- ME. "
― Shannon L. Alder
3 " Mort moved my ending to the beginning, took out all the adjectives, cut the whole thing in half, and made it one hundred percent better.'That's how it's done,' he said. Best writing lesson I ever had. "
― Anita Diamant , The Boston Girl
