Five winning stories will be selected by a panel of judges, and the winning entrants will each receive an Amazon Kindle 2 as well as Dragon NaturallySpeaking upgrades for three years.
When I was in my pre-teens I was diagnosed with severe depression and anxiety disorder. A symptom of this illness is a tendency toward racing thoughts. A way to describe it would be as if your brain were a balloon and your thoughts the water that filled it from a constantly flowing faucet. It would soon feel as if it were going to pop if you didn't find a way of releasing some of the water. A way I found to do this was to begin writing. It felt like whatever I put down on paper or spoke aloud released some of the water from the balloon and temporarily made me feel better. I can't remember how many notebooks I filled with random thoughts, or how many times I woke my mother in the middle of the night to tell her what was in my head. The need to expel the abundance of ideas, thoughts, worries, and dreams in my mind was a necessity; like lancing a boil to relieve pressure.
Though my depression and anxiety were eventually controlled with medication and therapy, the need that I developed to write and express myself through it only grew stronger. Even without the anxiety my mind would fill to bursting with ideas, poetry, stories, and often just what I'm thinking at any given time. But whereas this once seemed to be a curse, I've found it's been my salvation. The only problem was that my thoughts still manage to outrun my poor hands. I could never seem to keep up with everything I wanted to put down and often lost many of my musings to my slow writing or hunt and peck method of typing. It was just heartbreaking to me when they were simply lost to lack of time or speed on my part.
Luckily, I discovered there was a way to give voice to my thoughts and still capture them in written word. Dragon Naturally Speaking has made it possible for me to hold onto every thought or idea and catch it as quickly as my lips can speak it. It's like magic to think something, say it, and have it appear on my computer screen in a matter of seconds. There was a time in my life when I felt writing saved my sanity; now it feeds my soul. A painful period in my past gave me an unexpected gift in my ability and love of writing. I still have that sense of release whenever I write, and thanks to Naturally Speaking that feeling is magnified. Dragon gave my mind wings.