Set deep in the Highlands, it featured fireplaces tall enough for three grown Scotsmen to stand in. Now, let's take a look at a story that follows a simpler, chronological order. In some instances, following someone's daydream is a nice way to spice up an otherwise linear sequence of events. Rather, we went from adulthood to childhood, and back to adulthood again. In this short story, we didn't follow a pattern of birth, childhood, adulthood. Notice that a sequence of events doesn't have to follow a straight line. From there, she goes on to publish a succession of bestselling novels and finally travels, as a grown woman, to uncover her roots. Her hard work pays off because all those hours at the keyboard lead to her publication in Writers' Haven. Then, we see she hits 18 and continues to grow and mature as she waitresses during the evening and writes during the day. Because, as she stares at the house, her mind drifts back to an arduous childhood filled with "chores and fear."įollowing the sequence, we drift back into her childhood. In the first paragraph, we're met by a woman named Stella who must be an adult. Let's examine the sequence of events in this short story. As she turned from the decaying ruins of her parents' life, she decided not to look back but, rather, hop on her little red Vespa and drive up the coastal rode 'til the sun melted into the stars. And, come tomorrow, she could go anywhere and do anything. Sure, she didn't grow up playing gin rummy on a Friday night under the stars. Why did they send her away? Why did they never come and find her? As she stood on the broken sidewalk, staring up at the soot-covered exterior, she thought it might be time to accept her life as it is. The house was empty, her parents were gone, and her soul remained hollow. Turns out, the address her investigator gave her led to the old abandoned house she stood before now. One bestseller after another bestseller afforded Stella the opportunity to relax in a first class seat aboard Delta Airlines and drive out to San Diego to figure out why her birth parents never loved her. Stella had stories upon stories piled up in her tiny room in town. A few months later, her debut novel, A Life Without Love, hit the scene with a bang. In the ultimate act of fate, one of her query letters fell upon Nora Robb's desk. With the heat following her submission to Writers' Haven, she felt brave enough to start the hunt for an agent. This time, the shift brought wonderful change. Eventually, the magazine Writers' Haven picked up one of her stories, allowing life to shift in yet another direction. When she wasn't waitressing, she was writing. She immediately took a job as a waitress and found a room for rent in town. Life continued in this perpetual maze of chores and fear until Stella hit her 18th birthday. If they weren't, everyone knew to scatter and hide. They pushed through a long list of chores that needed to be completed before the parents arrived home from work at seven. She and five other children were perpetually crammed into three bunk beds in her foster parents' home. There were no glass solariums in her house growing up. At the thought of that, her mind drifted back to her own childhood. There was a glass-fronted solarium to the right where she imagined they sat and played cards every evening. The parents she never knew lived out the entirety of their lives here. As Stella pulled up to the old, abandoned house, she felt her heartbeat heavy in her chest.
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