Why Write?

If you had said to me a few years ago that in the very near future I would call myself a writer, I would have fallen over laughing. I hated writing. I spent nine years in college writing – term papers, projects, thesis, evaluations… ugh! Never again!
Not only did I despise the thought of having to write, I hated the process. I didn’t have a computer in my home, so any efficient writing had to be done at work or at the library. The thought of sitting at the table, tablet in hand, to write LONG HAND! It was too time consuming and too much work spent in laborious revision.

It's not that I don't have stories to tell. I have always loved making up stories, performing on stage, and singing to an audience. I tell stories to my school children all the time. But once the story is told I rarely remember it later.
Then one day my husband gave me the best gift ever – a laptop. Just a few weeks later during a parent / teacher conference a particular student admitted that she loved fantasy and adventure stories. She wished there were more stories about girls. I couldn’t stop thinking about what she said, and that very night I sat down at my laptop and typed out the beginning of my first novel.

I found myself thinking about my story all the time. It was a puzzle to be solved. I couldn’t wait to get home from work and lose myself in a world of my own creation. How could I have thought writing was torture?

I decided I wanted to make my story the best it could be. I made a trip to a local independent bookstore, The Blue Marble, in Fort Thomas, Kentucky, to find books about the craft. As I was at the checkout the bookseller asked if I was a writer. I told him I was a “wannabe.” He laughed, and then he extended an invitation to come to a local children’s writer’s critique group. I decided to go, and I’ve been a regular attendee ever since.

I have just finished my first novel. I’m sending it out into the world soon. Hopefully it will find a home with a publishing house. But while I wait I have another world to create, another relationship to build, and a story to tell.

Keep writing!