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The Blind Alley Kids.

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Hey, Reader

I know it's a weak title.

I can't even say that this was an homage to the Dead End Kids or the Bowery Boy movies I watched as a young person. It was more of a straight rip-off. But it wasn't me trying to write some stories and using this title to sell and get paid.

Instead, I came up with this when I was still a teenager, running around the streets of New York City with my friends Michael and Angel. We were into making home movies in superhero and villain costumes. And we had a lot of photo shoots wearing the same attire.

We were three kids growing up in the urban ghetto, dreaming of accomplishing much more.

One way we embraced these dreams and visions was as young, creative, amateur filmmakers. The stories always involved us against bad guys, doing the right thing, saving lives, and stopping robberies and criminal enterprises.

Most of the ideas never made it off of the paper. But we had dreams.

Where the bright lights lead us.

I never knew that years later, I would be living out some of those dreams, still in writing but for publication. That one of us would have a career (though short-lived) in music. And another would have a career in medicine.

It's not so important that we didn't become crime fighters in or out of costume. Our lives do not have to impact millions or make millions.

But it is essential that our imagination and creative energy lived on long enough to inspire us to try for something greater than what we knew as real life at that time.

That's still the power of imagination and creativity.

What you dream of becoming creatively may become something other than your career. It may be your therapy or your release. Or it may be the hobby that takes away the hours between the other tasks on your plate.

Nevertheless, you're entitled to it. It serves a purpose.

And if you pursue it as a career, then that same Creative Energy and Imagination will help you get through the tough times, the rejections, and the long waits between successes.

So, please don't quit, whatever the reason you do it. It's yours. Keep it alive.

Now, go forth and be brilliant.

Best,
​Alex Simmons

#TellTheDamnStory #WritingCommunity #Storytelling #CreativeWriting #AuthorLife #Inspiration #EthicsInWriting #PodcastDiscussion #mysterywriters #suspense #thrillers

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