My Love of Words Part 2

I remember distinctly the moment in my life when I knew that I wanted to be a writer. I was 9 and my best friend, Lisa and I had just finished watching an old B&W movie( name escapes me) where the storyline line revolved around 7 sisters with boyfriends but their widowed father had a rule that no one gets married until the oldest one does. Of course, the oldest one was a spinster sort type of bookworm. After that movie, I felt compelled to write something similar but better.

I wrote short stories for school and at high school graduation, my senior English teacher, Mrs. Hagelin, came up to me and said, "I hope someday that I read about you winning an award for your writing." She made me feel very proud of myself at that moment as well as reinforced the belief that I had in myself that I could write. I never forgot her kind words. Throughout high school, I wrote, mostly civil war dramas ala Gone With the Wind. I knew more about the Battle of the Bull Run than any other teenager I knew.

I floundered in college the first time around and rudderless, dropped out during my senior year. I didn't know what I wanted to do or become. The only thing I was sure of was writing but was told to put it on the back burner as I wouldn't be able to support myself. Young and impressionable, I took that advice. Finally at the age of 27, I went back to college for my nursing degree- I'm a carer at heart and although it wasn't my first choice, nursing was definitely my second and I would always have a job- I was told. While I completed my degree in nursing and worked full time, I wrote a manuscript called Blood is Thicker Than Water. This was in 1996, the year I graduated from nursing school. Off it went to different agents. A lot of rejections came flying back. But two agents said if I polished the manuscript up, they'd look at it again. I threw it in the drawer. Talk about a missed opportunity. Reading that manuscript now, I see how fundamentally flawed and unpolished it was, but there was a little spark of potential.

When I first moved to Ireland, I wrote a romantic comedy, titled, By The Seat of Her Pants. 44 rejection letters later, that too went into the drawer but I still pull that out from time to time to read it as I still love it. Now I've stalled on a novel but I have been writing short stories, which I haven't done in 25 years. I've found some pleasure in that. The first one dealt with divorce, current one deals with dying- these dark themes surely resonant with what's going on in my personal life at this time. If I continue in this vein, I'll be able to pull together an anthology and label it 'Doom & Gloom' or the 'Debbie Downer' anthology ( no reflection on you, Debs)

It was while I was living in Ireland that I became involved in an online writers' group, WriteWords. It was the best thing that had happened to me thus far, writing wise. I happened to be reading Claire Allan's fabulous Rainy Days and Tuesdays and she mentioned Write Words in her acknowledgements. I looked it up and quickly joined the chicklit group and have made fabulous online friends. Suddenly, writing was and is no longer an isolating experience.

But I will continue to write, even if it's just a note on the inside of a card. It's been 26 years since my English teacher made those lovely comments to me and I have not published one thing. Ever. The fact that I'm older doesn't bother me in the least as I've always been a late bloomer with everything in my life. I've decided to take my writing off the back burner and put it front and center. Maybe I'll never get published, but at least I'd have no regrets at the end of my life.

I write, not because I want to, but because I have to.