When I was younger my mother always told my brothers and me stories. Whether they were made up or found in the one of our books she always told us a story. I don't think at that time I gave much thought to becoming a writer, but mom knew how to keep your interest with her made up stories and we got to hear them every night before we went to bed.
I remember in middle school the students were given an assignment to keep a journal. Not really knowing what that was, I only knew that we were suppose to write thoughts everyday. I felt that this was a unbearable challenge at first, then I realized that I had a lot to say about different things in life.
Writing became cathartic as I entered high school and I continued to write in my journal, now by this time five binders filled. I could not stop keeping up with things. I still didn't give too much thought to becoming a writer during this time. When I was in English class I knew that I was good at writing, but it still didn't make me give writing a second look. My feeling was, I doing something that I am use to. By my senior year in high school my teacher told me that she was impressed with my work. Still nothing. I was determined to look elsewhere.
By the time I entered college, I had to take the placement tests. The guidance counselor gave me my results and he had informed me that my English testing allowed me to take any English class I wanted. I chose creative. Now the interesting thing about this class, we were always give the task of describing something and doing an entire page on this one object. I wrote my paper and turned it in. The next day in class the professor decided that he wanted to read his favorite paper. As he began to read, much to my horror, I realized he was reading MY paper. I slowly started sliding down into my chair, hoping no one would see me. "I love this paper. This writer really knows what I am looking for," he said aloud. I on the other hand wanted to crawl under a rock. The good thing was nobody knew it was me. That wasn't the last time this would happened in that class.
I had another class that really had nothing to do with creative writing so much, however the professor was very strict about how we wrote our papers. Once she decided that we would do a five page paper on fashion, as this was a fashion class. There was an a free dinner or lunch with the professor for the best paper. This project was supposed to have all the trimmings including fashion clippings from magazines that coincided with your paper. I put my paper together and turned it in when completed. After a few days my professor announced to the class that only one person had made an A on their paper. Surely it wasn't me, as there were others who I assumed had done a nice paper. She slowly walked through the class room and it appeared that she was taking too long to get to me. Finally the last paper handed was mine, with a big fat A-( the minus was because of grammar). I was shocked to say the least. the class clapped, although some I assume begrudgingly. My professor when on to tell me after class that I really should consider becoming a writer. I started thinking my I should become a writer as it was told to me several times. I mean what could it hurt I thought.
This was put on the back burner for many years, and finally after thinking that I had wasted enough time, I decided to publish my first book. It has been re-edited and re- published and I have not looked back. I have more books to come.
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