When I was young, I remember vividly sitting with friends, talking about nothing in particular – and while we were talking, I’d see a picture of my friends and me in my head. I’d mentally describe the room, the table, our clothing, and I’d pick out a subject in the conversation that I could focus on. Someone would laugh and instantly I’d think, Her laugh sounds like … fill-in-the-blank. Tinkling over stones. Like a stream in spring. A bleat…like…a baby goat. A donkey’s bray. I could get so caught up in my mental descriptions of sights and sounds that I’d miss the entire conversation. If I had an argument with someone, I’d describe (in my head) the dialogue – beat for beat.
So much for living in the moment.
When my grandson suggested this topic to me this afternoon, he said, “If I was writing this blog, you know I’d be a smart-aleck and I’d write, ‘I’m writing this, and it wasn’t fun. I’m finished. The end.’ But, if it’s you, I’d want you to tell me why you love to write so much.”
From the mouths of babes.
His simple statement threw me back fifty years, and I remembered when we finally settled in San Antonio, Texas. My dad retired from the service (for the first time) and promised we’d never move again – which I wasn’t really thrilled about. Our neighborhood was solidly middle-class, the kids on my block all looked alike, and the junior high I attended had less diversity than any school I’d ever been to. Honestly, just because I was so unchallenged by my surroundings that I really didn’t know what to do with myself, everything that happened during my day became a story I lived out in my imagination: normal dialogue became far more dramatic than it should’ve been, and slights or taunts or hallway meetings became its fodder. Even the assassination of President Kennedy, which we heard about over the intercom in the broken voice of our principal and broke my heart, became a movie in my brain.
For as long as I can remember, I’ve watched a kaleidoscope of images in my head. Stories, descriptions, dialogue…
I finally realized that writing was, for me, the only outlet that made sense. And then I realized that - not to be dramatic - but it’s what I was put on this earth to do. It was the only way I could come alive. By that time, I’d experienced the world in a tire tube (to coin an expression from my mother); I understood survival, life, and love as well as I ever would. I was ready to begin, to truly write about it all.
Now, as I’m seated at my desk working on this blog, I have to shake my head in disbelief. Now I’m finally old enough to write what I learned and what I know, and write with confidence. Now I can take all those scenes from so many years ago and put them together, and I can tell the truth. Whether it’s WHISPERS THROUGH TIME, which is historical fiction, or TIP THE PIANO MAN, which is the painfully honest story of a monumental event that changed my family, all those years of writing in my head is what made those novels possible. I could never have done it otherwise.
Why do you write? It’s a question I’ve been asked a million times, and this is the only answer I know: I have no choice.
Do I love it? Yes. Would I rather do anything else? I can’t think of a single thing.
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