Love the Ones You Walk For: MS Walk Hyannis

This Sunday, May 2, 2010 I will be walking in the 2010 Walk MS Hyannis with my family to support the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. I never knew a whole lot about the illness until a few years ago when my eyes started to become more aware of all the poor people that were afflicted with it, including an aunt, a co-worker and my mother-in-law-to-be in addition to a many other acquaintances I have made in my 27 plus years.

Multiple Sclerosis is a very disheartening and unforgiving disease. There is so much that remains unknown about it with the only two commonalities I can see being 1.) that it effects everybody differently and 2.) that it is debilitating, whether fast or slow, it all depends on the individual.

There is nothing sadder than watching your loved ones go on a course from their time of diagnosis to the loss of their independence and eventual mortality. I realize that my efforts, alone in this walk to raise money and awareness for the research, advocacy, support and education towards a better way of life for those afflicted with MS may not be much, but the possibility for exponential growth that may come out of my participation via word of mouth, sponsorship, donations and more gives me hope that we may be able to exert change in the lives of those we care most about and the future of patients with multiple sclerosis.

Please support me and my family as we walk in this 10k on Sunday to try a make "a world free of MS". I hope to be posting some pictures of my family and the walk this weekend.

For information on the walk in Hyannis or other locations around the country, please visit:
http://walkmam.nationalmssociety.org/site/PageServer?pagename=WLK_MAM_homepage

A world of information about multiple sclerosis and how you can help is available at http://www.nationalmssociety.org/chapters/MAM/index.aspx

Welcome

Hi Everyone,

Welcome to my first web page: Where You Wish Upon A Star. It's been my dream for a long time, since I can ever remember, to write professionally one day. I wanted to write a biography, mystery and women's fiction novel. As a child, I used to write "creative stories" in a spiral notebook. When I went to camp, my friend Susie and I decided that our ghost writer names should be Last Initial, First Initial, Middle Name, and so the author H.C. Grace was born. I wrote everything. Stories about swimming and tennis and shopping. Mysteries about ghosts, villains and vampires. I read all the time, my earliest favorites being Judy Blume, Roald Dahl and Beverly Cleary. I also led a very active lifestyle, playing sports, neighborhood games, role play and make-believe. I had plenty of inspiration to draw upon.

When I was really young, my favorite stories were fairy tales, from the Brothers Grimm and Hans Anderson to Walt Disney. Now that I'm an adult, I'm well aware that life is not ever going to be like those fairy tales, sometimes a little too painfully aware, but it doesn't mean I can't still love, embrace and reiterate them. In fact, a lot of them have so many hidden meanings and messages in them that no child could possibly even contemplate, let alone understand. And so this is where I drew inspiration for my first web page, Where You Wish Upon A Star. It is where I can bring reality to my dreams, and please, feel free to share yours with me, too.

To put truth to one of my first dreams, the craft of writing, I have been getting back into the habit I maintained as a child of writing every day. My goal is to write a first draft of a full-length novel by the end of 2010. I have gotten so far as to write an outline, a brief summary, various character sketches and chapter one. I began writing the draft of this novel (To Be Titled) with a basic premise and storyline that i kept in my mind (and on scrap pieces of paper, sticky notes, loose leaf paper and many, many computer files). One day, after I finished reading a women's fiction/chick lit book and closed it with a smile on my face (as I so often do), I started to think more intently, "How can I write a book like this that leaves the reader so satisfied and happy? Sad that the story is over but satiated with the depth of its characters and plot?" and then it hit me. "Why not turn my novel from something I like into something I love?" Using the basic premise of the classic story of Sleeping Beauty, I decided to rework my outline to become a modern fairy tale. And what better place to share the day by day progress of my novel, to show the transformation of an idea into reality than "Where You Wish Upon A Star"?

To everyone out there who ever believed in wishing on stars, please share your dreams and how you are working on turning them into reality with me here and thank you for letting me share mine.