Paper Doll Graduation Speech

I am one of those people who have lots of little voices living inside my head. I enjoy listening to all the wonderful stories they tell me, usually thinking as I do so that I need to write these stories down before I forget them. But something always gets in the way. Many of these stories have been lost forever in the series of infernos that have taken over my life. The burning desire for education has taken a decade of my life; how could I write the Great American Novel when I had to worry about ten to fifteen page papers due every Friday? Once I received my degrees I had to pay back my educational fees or get scarred with a bad credit score. I burned the candle at both ends, working two jobs - neither of which were in my field - I met and married my husband and together we paid off the loans just in time to welcome a family…and then who has time to write when there are little one’s demanding to be fed every two hours?

And so I sat. The voices in my head were never silent. They often whispered in my ear, sometimes they screamed at me to let them out, but they were never silent.

Last summer I lost several people I loved, their voices silenced forever. I realized that I would never get to hear their stories again, never get to ask them another question. What I learned about them before they died was all I would ever know.

It may sound selfish, but I want my life, and my stories, to have a life after my life ends. I am only in my thirties, and hope to have another thirty years to live, and then another thirty after that, but just in case that’s not to be, I decided to start writing…now.

I searched for writing websites in the fall and stumbled upon NanNoWriMo. I read the book, No Plot No Problem and set off to use that as a guide to get myself going. November came and went and I have an unfinished, not very good, novel under my belt. I rested in December, and then let my New Year begin with a new goal…an Internet writing group.

I joined Writing.Com on January 2nd of this year (2009). I had no idea what to expect, seeing as I just stumbled upon it through a Google search. I researched it a bit, and I liked the reviews it had received, so I joined.

I was overwhelmed by the layout, the multitude of activities, the amazing amount of text, the levels, the prices, the points, the…you see what I mean.

I was just getting a bit frustrated when someone gifted me a three month upgrade. I still don't know who did this for me, but it gave me the incentive I needed to stick with the site for at least those three months. Then, when I was still feeling my way around in the dark but was beginning to figure things out, I got an email…you are invited to join the Paper Dolls.

Um, okay. Who are these people, why did they pick me? I read some of the stuff in Hannah’s port and decided she seemed nice, so I accepted.

You don’t know what you don’t know until someone else points it out to you. As soon as I joined the Paper Dolls I found out how much I didn’t know about WDC. I walked through the first few challenges, then began to find myself in areas of the site I hadn’t seen before. It was wonderful to have a guide through the site, especially one that let me wander around at my own pace. I trusted that these people knew what I needed to learn and I placed myself in their hands. Step by step they led me through the important areas of the site, introduced me to people I needed to know and ideas I needed to learn.

I might have learned it all on my own, but it would have been over a much longer period of time and I might not have met such wonderful people along the way. I have made friends of both the staff and other newbie’s…

Which leads me to my conclusion…

What is a paper doll? A string of one-dimensional paper human-like figures.

Why then is this group called the Paper Dolls? I have never asked, but have come to my own conclusion about that. Paper Dolls are created by an artist who must pay attention to details in order to make sure that each doll is connected securely to the rest of the chain. Once created, the line is unique, linked forever, all alike in at least one aspect, the scissors that helped them take shape.

We are the Paper Dolls. Each of us was shaped by the leaders of our group and so we are similar, but as we color ourselves in, with our writing and our experiences, we will also be unique within the shape we have each been given.

We are a chain, forever linked.

Featured in Shadows: A Paper Doll Gang Publication Volume 1: Issue 1, May 2009

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