They Believed in Me and I Succeeded
22+ years later, I’ve accomplished the childhood dream
My passion for writing and success in it always stemmed back to my elementary school days, over 22 years ago.
My early report cards talk about how social I was, possibly talking way too much, and how I was eager to learn new things. Then teachers began to notice my interest shift from math to writing. More than that, they noticed I was pretty good at it.
Somewhere at some point, this must have been said, but for the life of me, I cannot remember it.
Rather, I remember one day chatting with my friends about what we wanted to be when we grew up.
We sat in the quiet library, gathered in the cozy loft raised in the corner. We were wrapped in the warm glow of light to read by, surrounded by pillows, books, and stuffed animals. We sat looking at each other and began to make our plans.
What did we want to be when we grew up?
Early in elementary school, we had days where we dressed up in our future careers. We got in line and marched around outside, dressed up like firefighters, doctors, scientists, and if you were me, a dental assistant.
I was never one to plan terribly far into the future, so in 2nd grade, it was easier to dress up as what had been my Mom’s career than pick out my own future career. But, by 5th grade that had changed.
I wanted to be a writer when I grew up. More specifically, I wanted to grow up and write a book.
My friends didn’t want to be doctors, teachers, scientists, the first female President, or astronauts.
As we sat in the loft my friends talked about how they wanted to be my editors, which we all agreed I needed multiples of, and my publishers. No more than 10 years old we all decided to invest our futures in my dream of being a writer.
From that day on I finally knew what I wanted to be when I grew up and everyone in my life supported me in getting there. While the dream grew and transformed over the years, the support, even from those childhood friends, never faltered.
Storytelling
I worked on stories through high school and eventually put the dream of writing a book off to the side.
For the first time, I received pushback on my writing, not for a lack of skill but because of the content and how vividly it was written. The horror story I had been working on in my free time at school wasn’t deemed appropriate. So I stopped.
I started telling stories through journalism, falling in love with meeting people and getting to share their stories. As I hung my degree on my wall and headed into adulthood where I told the stories of a roller derby team, used stories to convey messages at work, and implemented storytelling in new ways.
I wrote, wrote, and wrote some more in new ways and new places.
There was still a lingering desire to write a story, to achieve 10-year-old me’s dream. The content never felt like a fit and part of me was still scared from the experience in high school, then one night that all changed.
A story was born
I laid restless in bed, tossing and turning unable to fall asleep. I rolled over to my boyfriend and asked him to tell me a story, any story. Something to send me off to dreamland.
Usually, a soft soothing voice put me to sleep while it read me a story from the Calm app. But this night my earbuds rest on my nightstand, out of commission.
My boyfriend had no stories to tell me, and in all fairness was trying to fall asleep too. He suggested I make up my own story and try to fall asleep to that. I closed my eyes and let my imagination run free.
No restrictions. No counting sheep.
Canteen was born, the new kid in school who’s extremely different from the other kids. The images and the voices danced in my head. I thought it was hysterical and broke into a fit of laughter.
So much for going to sleep.
My brain mashed a story together as I tried to contain my laughter and drift off to sleep. It tried to settle for the night while holding onto this nugget of gold I had created.
Eventually, I captured the story on paper, flushed out the characters, pulled together a true plot, and revised a lot.
Welcome to Watering Hole
Canteen is the new kid in class at John Smith Elementary School, and more than that, Canteen is different from everyone else. Really different.
Well, he is your average 5th grader who hates math, loves recess, has a best friend, and loves fishing. But to the kids in Watering Hole, Frank especially, that’s not enough.
What is a 5th grader to do when he’s new to the school and just wants to make friends? Canteen, a sweet 10-year-old boy, has to decide what to do and how to navigate this year at a new school.
Welcome to Watering Hole by Heather Gioia is available in print and Kindle formats on Amazon.
Childhood dreams
It may have taken 22 years and only be 30 pages, but I achieved that childhood dream.
I became a writer. I wrote a book
The outpouring of support when I shared what I had spent the last year working on was overwhelming.
I anticipated the likes on Facebook and excitement from my family. What I didn’t expect was friends to buy my book, friends without kids sending me photos of their copy of the book when it arrived in the mail.
I should have expected it though.
It is that unconditional, honest, and passionate support that has been behind me all along. Everyone’s continued belief in me, their support, clicks and reads on all my posts. They have always been there and they have always helped fuel the flame behind my dream.
Acknowledgments
Not everyone is lucky enough to find their passion and have a village supporting their pursuit of that dream. Not everyone gets the affirmations, support, and encouraging words when they are staring at a blank screen.
I know that my village gave me that. I know that they gave me an advantage in achieving my dream.
But, even knowing that one of the gravest mistakes I made in edition one of Welcome to Watering Hole was not including an Acknowledgments section. So here it goes…
Thank you to my family for their unconditional love and support. For recognizing my skills, helping me grow, and to strive towards my goals. Thank you for never telling me I’d end up being a starving artist.
Thank you Kevin for always encouraging me to use my imagination and helping me to push out of my comfort zone. For welcoming all of my shenanigans.
Thank you to all my friends and their kids for the endless amounts of childish fun, playtime, troll hunt adventures, and so much more.
Thank you everyone for your endless amount of support. Thank you for believing in me, even when I had doubts. Thank you for celebrating me, embracing my individuality, and giving me the space to grow and succeed.
Thank you to everyone who recognized I could succeed in writing and my passion for it over 22 years ago. Thank you for helping to cultivate the skill and establish the drive.
Thank you to everyone who jumped on buying Welcome to Watering Hole the moment they knew it existed. Thank you for your excitement about what I have done and thank you for always knowing I could and would.
Each of you has helped me get here today and your ongoing support will continue to fuel my passion. Thank you.
