Wrangler Dani

My bolt came in bits, and the storm gathered for sometime before it struck. I started as an art major, convinced that I would be able to translate my limited photo-editing abilities into glossy advertisements and the types of posters that 18-year-olds like myself bought at Bed Bath and Beyond for our dorm room decor. Quickly I realized that I neither had the skill nor the patience for perfecting art for the hours spent crouched over a charcoal drawing or a Photoshop creation. Words were floating through my mind constantly, however, so I migrated to Integrated Marketing Communication, a fancy-sounding major that allowed me to use the drips and drabs of my artsiness along with some good ol’ fashioned money-making abilities.

But I still wasn’t happy. I hate advertising classes, I hated the lack of artistry in most of the marketing copy we created. I hated not getting to flex creative muscles, and I felt out-of-place amongst business and marketing majors whose goals were nothing more than a decent job and a 401k.

I had something to say. I switched to journalism and found my voice.

I worked at the school newspaper and found other people who were as passionate about the placement of commas and well-stated opinions as I was. I debated ethics and learned to create emotion and beauty with economy, only using the words necessary, never talking down to my audience. I had a press pass and a fiery desire to get nothing but straight As. But I was not a writer. The storm was brewing.

Upon graduation, I got a job at the LA Times. I spent most of my year there stuck in traffic, discussing boob jobs with my coworkers and wishing I was downstairs, where the old printing presses stood on display, signposts of a time gone by.

I still would not call myself a writer. I was a failure, a drifter, a lover of old printing presses and decent debate, both things that were stuck in the journalism of my college years and seemed nowhere to be found in the real world.

The bolt came after several years of low-hanging clouds, after writing in the dark and wishing that I had more than mere lamplight to see by, something to give my efforts purpose. I introduced myself to someone and was asked, “what do you do?”

“I’m a writer,” I replied.

My calling exploded. It crackled and boomed, and the pent-up storm inside me released. The bolt had been waiting a decade, waiting for me to figure it out, to not fear its power or shrink from its voice. I’d spent so long writing myself off that I hadn’t realized that somewhere along the way I’d become the very thing I wanted most to be.

A writer.