my little cousin, moriah rose, loves princesses.  so i thought some time ago that i would write a princess story for her birthday in november.  i sat down one sunday afternoon and began to write.  i typed, “once upon a time” in a word document, and after the cursor blinked at me for about fifteen minutes, i decided that perhaps inspiration would hit if i had a cup of coffee and switched over to real paper and pen.  after most of my coffee was gone and the remaining inch cold, i recycled six sheets of paper with “once upon a time, high in the snow-shrouded mountains, there was a princess named rose” scrawled all over them, and i gave up on the story.

but then for one of my classes (writing for children and adolescents, byu) i was assigned the written portion of a picture book.  i looked in my brain — my fluffy, wiped-out brain — for ideas…and the only one i found was rather tiny and tattered, an idea which had already tried and failed to become a fairy tale about a princess who wasn’t.

so, with little hope in my heart, i sat down at my laptop to write.  i typed “once upon a time”…and stopped.  this felt too familiar.  *backspace.*

the cursor blinked.

*blink.*

“rose was not a princess.”

=)