On the Write Path
First comes a love of reading…
Like most writers, I grew up surrounded by books. My mother read to me, taught me scansion for the fun of it, and recited countless nonsense rhymes from memory. From reading memoirs by other female writers, I know that our beginnings were similar. We started with a love of reading.
Still, it’s a giant leap from loving to read to writing for fun or profit. Writers are often asked about their epiphanies, those magical moments when they realize they have a gift and should use it. For one thing, most writers begin writing in childhood for the fun of it. Yes, fun! I was a nerd before I’d ever heard the word. I imagined all children wrote stories, just as we all pretended we were other people or animals.
One of my first heroes of literature was Jo March. Women my age and older didn’t have many strong female role models as kids. Yes, Lois Lane, was a reporter, but how drab she seemed compared to you-know-who. Little Women was one of Mama’s favorite books. She read it to me before I was able to read it myself, then read me Alcott’s other books as well. When I was a teen, I reread Little Women from my mother’s childhood copy. I blubbered all over the page where Beth dies. Mama had already stained it with her tears. Her sisters may even have added to the pool.
But I wasn’t Jo March, and Mama certainly didn’t imagine she was raising an author. Mama’s goal was to make me an avid reader, ready me for college, and to instill some of the spunk she and Jo shared. It was Jo’s dedication to her dream that inspired me, and her determination to make her way in a man’s world. After all, I had a genius brother five years ahead of me in school. I knew all about fierce competition.
My dream was to be an artist. Like most children, I loved the illustrations in my picture books more than I loved the stories themselves. Trying to draw what I saw was my way of catching up on seeing the world. My parents didn’t realize that I was nearly blind until I was four and a half. Up till then, I perceived my world through taste, touch, and by ear. (I still have some trouble remembering faces.) I loved singing, dancing, and eavesdropping on adult conversation. The moment I got glasses, I began learning to read and copying the drawings in my books, almost touching the pages with my nose.
My mother claimed my brother was reading when he was only ten months old (definitely by age two). Once we were grown, my brother confided, “First they thought you were stubborn, then they thought you were stupid, then they found out you couldn’t see.” I soon made up for lost time. I could finally see individual letters and words on a page instead of black lace or a cloud.
I was so set on art that I didn’t recognize the write path was calling to me. It took more than one epiphany. My first sign was when I was in third grade. While Mama washed supper dishes, I read her a story, “The Mouse Family’s Christmas.” The only detail I remember is that Father Mouse returned to their mouse hole, dragging a sprig from a pine tree. He set the tiny tree up in a corner of their living room using a piece of discarded chewing gum. The artist in me undoubtedly embellished with other decorations, food, and caroling. When Mama finished washing, she grabbed a dishtowel to dry her hands and turned around. She saw my notebook paper. The epiphany was maybe bigger for her than for me. “I thought you were reading from A BOOK!” she said. “You wrote that?”
That was the proudest moment of my young life. I’d written something as good
as a REAL BOOK!
You’d think that would have been a flashing neon sign, “Write Path this way!” But no. After all, painting pictures was more fun. Writing was more like school work. Fun, yes, but also work, work, work. Plus, I was already discovering that some writing was just plain boring.
My next big aha came . . . . Sorry, you’ll need to subscribe to my blog so you won’t miss my next steps on the Write Path.