"I love writing. I love the swirl and swing of words as they tangle with human emotions.” – James A. Michener
When I speak with writers, I find that most of them began to love writing as soon as they received their first paper and pencils for school.
When did you fall in love with writing?
By the time I was in fourth grade, I had several spiral notebooks filled with my stories. I built myself a platform in the chinaberry tree in our backyard so I could sit up there among the birds, hidden by the limbs and leaves. I guess you could call that my first writing studio.
I remember looking out on the green pastures of summer, seeing cattle grazing and feeling the slight breeze moving through the tree top.
Since I dreamed of having my own horse some day, my stories always included a horse that was beautiful and that loved me. Many young girls fall in love with horses at a young age. Some people say horses are wonderful for girls between toys and boys. But my love for horses never left me. I read all of the books on horses, and especially loved The Black Stallion books.
Today, if you visited me you would find a painting of the horse I finally owned after I finished college. I loved her so much and she lived to be 32 years old. On shelves you would see figures of horses heads and full body forms. On the mantel is a photo of Barry, my husband, on one of the horses he owned. He learned to enjoy horses after we married.
Horses and writing were my hobbies when I was a child and continued until I no longer had a horse and writing became more than a hobby. Like many women I know today, I decided I wanted to be a writer after seeing the movie Little Women. Jo March inspired me.
But I didn't tell anyone I wanted to be a writer. I felt my brothers would laugh and tease me and I would not dare share my writng with any one of them. When I was in college, I shared a poem I wrote with my sister, June. It was free verse because that was what English teachers taught at the time. June would never hurrt my feelings, but she had learned poems by the old masters, rhyming poems, and she didn't really enjoy my poe try. Neither did my other sister. I loved the rhyming poetry, especially Robert Frost, and I loved hearing Max and Ray, my brothers, recite Edgar Allen Poe's The Raven and many other poems they memorized in school.
I kept secretly writing poetry, short stories, and non-fiction tales about people I knew. I kept a private diary and I have to smile when I now read the pages of a college girl in the 1960s, who poured out her heart about the boys she liked, the ones she wanted to love but didn't, and how hard it was to deal with being a grown up in the world.
I think writing saved me from falling into deep depression several times when I was in college. My closest friend at the University of Georgia was my sister and she had a busy life.
She didn't really like school, but she joined the Modern Dance Group
and loved it. So I held my feelings in except when late at night, they flowed out on my journal pages where no one else would read them.
Now in my new stage of life when I am often alone, I write again.
I teach and enjoy reading the stories written by my students. I am glad I have learned from knowledgeable teachers in North Carolina and north Georgia for the past thirty years and I can help beginning and intermediate writers get past those roadblocks that pop up when you first start to write for others to read.
It seems to me that writers are more curious than other people. Writers are extra sensitive to their surroundings, to the people in their lives, and often more intuitive.
I always want to know the story about the person, about the situation, why and how things happened. Everyone has a unique story and when we write our stories we often develop a new perspective on what happened. As we age, mining our memories opens our eyes to what happened, not just what we thought happened.
But I didn't tell anyone I wanted to be a writer. I felt my brothers would laugh and tease me and I would not dare share my writng with any one of them. When I was in college, I shared a poem I wrote with my sister, June. It was free verse because that was what English teachers taught at the time. June would never hurrt my feelings, but she had learned poems by the old masters, rhyming poems, and she didn't really enjoy my poe try. Neither did my other sister. I loved the rhyming poetry, especially Robert Frost, and I loved hearing Max and Ray, my brothers, recite Edgar Allen Poe's The Raven and many other poems they memorized in school.
I kept secretly writing poetry, short stories, and non-fiction tales about people I knew. I kept a private diary and I have to smile when I now read the pages of a college girl in the 1960s, who poured out her heart about the boys she liked, the ones she wanted to love but didn't, and how hard it was to deal with being a grown up in the world.
I think writing saved me from falling into deep depression several times when I was in college. My closest friend at the University of Georgia was my sister and she had a busy life.
She didn't really like school, but she joined the Modern Dance Group
and loved it. So I held my feelings in except when late at night, they flowed out on my journal pages where no one else would read them.
Now in my new stage of life when I am often alone, I write again.
I teach and enjoy reading the stories written by my students. I am glad I have learned from knowledgeable teachers in North Carolina and north Georgia for the past thirty years and I can help beginning and intermediate writers get past those roadblocks that pop up when you first start to write for others to read.
It seems to me that writers are more curious than other people. Writers are extra sensitive to their surroundings, to the people in their lives, and often more intuitive.
I always want to know the story about the person, about the situation, why and how things happened. Everyone has a unique story and when we write our stories we often develop a new perspective on what happened. As we age, mining our memories opens our eyes to what happened, not just what we thought happened.
If I were teaching in elementary school today, I would make sure my students learned to write. Not to prepare them for being a best-selling author, although they could. But when we pour out our thoughts and feelings on paper, it is therapy for us. It helps clear our minds in a good way. Often it cures our anxiety, our fears, and creates a clearer picture of our world.
Have a lovely Autumn here in the USA or wherever you live, enjoy every day because they are precious.
Leave a comment and tell me when you began writing or if you want to be a writer.
Write on!
Write on!
