NOTE: I took out my last name... I don't trust the Internet as much as everyone thinks I do. I also would have scanned the actual newspaper article, except I never bought the newspaper. The head of the paper presented me with the finished copy of the article to me on the last day of school before Christmas vacation... the finished copy was the typed copy the interviewer turned in for her class.
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Amy -----, whose pen names are more commonly known as Amy E. or Amy Liz, is a writer who's yet to venture into the publishing world. Many of her novels are posted on the Internet as "Fan Fiction" to attract the younger, adolescent crowd to her words, but she also has those which stay hidden away in notebooks, folders, and computer files.
She was born, the middle child, to her family in 1981. Often depressed and isolated by everyone, she began turning to books to occupy herself. Soon, she turned to training her imagination. By this, I mean, she began writing descriptions of things she saw only in the depths of her mind. If she couldn't take the image in her head, erase it completely, read what she wrote, and create the image again in full detail, she'd begin again. She would tear herself away from the cliché story line of boy and girl hate each other, fall in love on Prom night, and live happily ever after. There was, and is, always a twist to what she writes.
When she was in fifth grade, her reading teacher began critiquing Amy's work as "orginal and well-written" to "it couldn't get any better if you tried.". But, there were always times when Amy would slack off, and the commetns went from praise to, "Not working to your potential. We both know this wasn't done with the complete talent you have. Rewrite it."
In sixth grade, the same reading teacher assigned a poem to be written. The poems would be submitted to a poetry contest. Winners would have their work published in a Literary Works for the Youth edition. Amy's poem was chosen. After seeing her work on a books page, she knew she wanted her words and thoughts published and shared with everyone.
She would begin isolating herself again, and live only for creating characters, images, and statements. She promised herself that a novel of her own would be sitting on a shelf in a book store, and people would buy them, check them out at libraires, and read them for English classes.
Amy's writings on the Internet have been questioned by awe-struck readers. Accusations have been left in guestbooks, on message boards, and sent via email of her being a professional writier. Amy says, "I'm a professional college student who's imagination will get the best of me. I'm not a professional writer. It's a hobby I hope to expand into a profession."
Although this statement doesn't always convince the wondering minds of her readers, they accept it, for now. Then, there are those who refuse to accept her answer. They copy descriptions from Amy's stories, and sent them to her with questions similar to, "You're telling me this wasn't written by a professional?". Amy laughs those off and just refuses to respond back. She's already explained herself, and she accepts those words as compliments. They cause her to continue to create more characters and lives for them.
Amy has described several different places and events in her novels, short stories, poems, and songs in a way that makes you see and feel the experiences and places. How does she do that? In less than a year she has expereinced watching her parents go through not only one, but two bitter divorces, marrying each other again, being stalked by a crazed man, depression that almost sent her to suicide, gaining weights as result of the depression, moving seven times, having several confusing relationships, traveling from state-to-state on impromptu trips, photographing almost everything she saw. Again, that's all in LESS than a year. That doesn't include everything else she's experienced before all the before mentioned occurred.
Her descriptions are what get's everyone's
attention. They are what caught mine. For example, a description
from her novel Fire she's written:
"The fire consumed everything in it's path. The roaring blazes were more deafening than the singsong wails of the fire engines' sirens. She watched as it encircled her. She was fascinated by it. Fascinated by the intensity of the heat. Of the color. Of the bright red-orange coloring that danced across her room, up the walls, darting down the middle of her floor."Faintly, she heard cries for her name. Cries from the brave souls, the firefighters, searching through the extreme heat and light to find her. To save her. But, she didn't want to be found. She wanted to watch. To watch as the light, heat, the power of the fire intensified. She was as giddy as a toddler receiving a lollipop for good behavior. "
The description doesn't only
describe the fire, but also dabs into telling how eccentric the character,
Allison, is.
Did Amy actually have to experience an event similar to that to describe it? No. However, she did experience wanting to do that. Just as her character, Amy was depressed; fasinated by fire; and was in a state where she would imagaine commiting arson to her home if it would end the life she called "a nightmare" she was forced to live through. But, instead of actually committing the crime, Amy turned to writing it, and it soon became the story she's know for around Cyber Space.
"I had to do something," Amy says. "I had all these negative feelings and thoughts raging though me. And, if I couldn't use any creative and positive means to dispose of them, I would have caused a great deal of irreversible damage to not only myself but those around me, as well."
After ending Fire, demands for a sequel were intense. And, after receiving hundreds of requests, Amy began writing the second in a three-part saga, Nightmares. Nightmares, was then followed by This I Promise You. She put the three stories together as Fire, split into three books: United, Nightmares, and Promises. This novel has won many awards on the Internet, and has been critqued by fiction critics on the 'Net as beging, "WONDERFULLY WRITTEN.", "ENGROSSING.". It has also been called, "Possibly the best fan fiction story written'. Amy's comment to that? She laughs and says, "Now, I don't know about all that. I just wrote." Many people also write to Amy saying that they "are striving to write" on her level.
With those praises, Amy hopes to change a few names and details, for copyright purposes only, and submit the novel to publishing agents. This novel very well may be the beginning of a floruishing career.
You can find her work at http://www.geocities.com/lizabeth_amy.
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After this article was published
I got a letter from someone saying,
"The way you write makes me feel like I'm sitting right beside you
listening to you talk, or that I'm actually inside your mind. Very well written!
Keep up the good work!!"
I want to say thank you to the
girl for sending that letter. It arrived on a day that I felt like
giving up. And, those three lines helped me out tremendously that
day. So, thank you.
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Peace,
Amy Liz