I’ve been a storyteller all my life.
As child, I remember roaming through open fields, making up stories as I explored. Sometimes I imagined I was a child in the revolutionary days. Sometimes I was great detective, looking for buried treasure. I was, family history states, also very good a making up imaginative stories when my childhood behavior needed a good “rationalization”. I was good at telling stories.
I vaguely remember the first story I ever put in a “book”. It was written on yellow paper with blue lines, my pencil kept smearing when I erased. It ended up to be 22 pages long. I admit the handwritten font was pretty big, and the blue yarn I used to “sew” the pages together was not exactly as professional as a binding machine, but I was pretty excited for a seven year old. I have no idea today about the plot, but I do know that a cute little yellow duck played prominently in the story.
The writing continued through school , adulthood, and into my professional writing career as a novelist who pens sweet romantic stories for Avalon Books, along with other publishers.
Interwined with those book length stories, I told stories to my children as they grew, put dozens of nervous Girl Scouts to sleep during rainy overnight camping trips, and used stories continually in my classroom.
I’m also an avid reader, and my living space has walls lined with bookshelves, filled with my beloved books. There are a lot of books. Today, one of my favorite pastimes is telling stories to my adorable grandkids.
“Do you have a story for us?” You betcha. A few weeks back, one of my granddaughters was visiting me with a young friend. “Wow, your grandmother has a lot of books,” he said in respectful awe, seeing my bookshelves. “That’s a lot of stories.”
“You think that’s a lot?” said my seven year old granddaughter philosophically, “You should see how many she still has in her head.”
Isn’t that the truth? To all my writer friends, may you always have lots of stories in your head, too. I can’t wait to read them.
7 comments:
An insightfull post. Will definitely help.
Thanks,
George - Officetronics Binding Machine
Nice story. Bet that little boy rushed right out to the library when he got home...
I once visited a house that had so many books there were shelves in the bathrooms. My house isn't that bad- yet. I never understand those perfectly sterile homes. Where are they hiding all the books?
A delightful story. Like you have a lot of stories in my head. I just wish they'd go to sleep at night so I can get some rest.
I wish, I wish, I wish I had time to write all those stories. I wish there was a company that would publish them all so I could share them. But I realize only a few of these stories would have meaning for others, so I curl up and enjoy the ones I love but will never find an audience to share them with.
i'm sad you can't hear all my stories--but you're probably better off because they don't appeal to everyone.
Lovely blog! Than you. It brings back my first books--and the plays I wrote for my classes in 5th (about archeology in Egypt) and 8th (a mystery).
Thanks, Christine! I do have many stories in my head. The problem for me is having the discipline to finish putting one on paper while the other is nagging to be let out. I think I need to learn to write faster. Thank goodness for NaNoWriMo. I never could resist a little healthy competition.
Post a Comment