100 Multiple Choice Questions + 1 Essay

Yesterday I passed the 100-question/3 hour exam I was required to take before renewing my Florida real estate license.

I am confident I over-prepared for the test – because that’s how I roll.

For the last 7 days, I devoted ALL of my energy to studying and ZERO energy to writing.

To reward myself for getting through the 45+ hours of studying and subsequent exam, I went to the beach – to write.

I didn’t take all my taped together pieces of paper because that would have been ridiculous – and probably disastrous. Instead, I took one little piece of writing that quite literally didn’t make the cut.

I had a story within my story (a flashback, I guess) that I really loved, but it just wasn’t fitting in the big picture of my real project. I had set those pages aside a week or so ago, because unlike all the other paragraphs I’d cut to pieces and thrown away, I just couldn’t bring myself to wad up this collection of words.

So, I took those few pages, a notebook, a clipboard, and a handful of pens – lest multiple pens run out of ink – and I attempted to convert my “discarded writing” into a personal essay that I can submit to a magazine or enter into a writing contest.

I was anticipating a nice, quiet opportunity to think about my essay – sitting alone on the beach with only the sound of the water rolling onto the sand. But, holy-moly, the beach was CROWDED. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many people on a Naples beach before. The only empty patch of sand was next to a lady with a strong New York accent yelling for her kids to stop throwing sand. (They never stopped throwing sand, and she never stopped yelling.)

I managed to flesh out a very rough first draft before I started feeling guilty about sitting at the beach in the middle of a weekday.  So, after about an hour – I packed up all my stuff, nodded good-bye to the loud lady, and went to the grocery store in an attempt to be a productive adult.

Perhaps I’ll try beach-writing again another day…. maybe while Matt is golfing… and after all the snowbirds go home…