The Dragon Story

Listen to the audio here: https://venture-within.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/The-Dragon-Story.m4a

I don’t know my new neighbor well, but he has a small, fluffy grey dog named Lulu. Crossing paths with Roo the other day, he stopped me unexpectedly and asked if I was a writer. He’d read a recent article of mine online and was intrigued.

Although I hadn’t realized we were digitally social friends and neighbors, I stepped forward into the conversation saying, yes, I am a writer. We continued chatting while our pups became frenemies, challenging the leashes, and friskily sniffing their canine hellos.

I have been a writer all my life.

In high school, I entered a writing competition at the American Legion and won first place. While I don’t remember which story I submitted, the trophy impressed me. Small, but surprisingly heavy, a bronze eagle perched on a marbly base, its wings pointed high. Trophies like the kind I’d only seen practiced athletes receive.

There was another story I’d written in high school that, when finishing the read-through, my little sister’s face opened up with tears and she hurriedly left the living room shouting behind her, “Why did you make him die??”

There was no answer I could give her, except that death made the story a good one and my writing helped her feel the tragedy of it.

However, it was in 8th grade English AP class when I first truly lassoed the power of the written word. We were given a writing assignment surrounding the story of St. George and the Dragon.

This was a tough class for me because while I loved the subject, the others in the class were intimidating, and staunched my enthusiasm. My teacher was stern. A thin, tall woman who wore no make-up, and offered few smiles.

The bullies in the back were girls who wore too much make-up too soon and were louder than the other kids, dragons themselves. Friendships were not easily forged for me back then. I was smart, chubby, wore glasses, and had stupid hair.

Our crowded classroom was populated with low-ish income 13-year-olds. We sat in cracked plastic chairs behind graffitied desks aligned in rows on a dirty, stained linoleum floor. The open windows were high and dusty, and the…