Writing

To those who don’t write, writing is a mysterious process – at least, that’s what people have said to me; I’ve had stories floating around in my head all my life.

“It must be really hard to write a novel,” they say. But it’s not.

In general, characters comes knocking, and I hope they will go away. When they  don’t, I sit down and write about them.

My earliest creation happened when I was three or four years old. My favorite bedtime story was one my mother hated. Truly, the story was boring. But the pictures were great.

So, when my mother started reading, I told her that’s not how the story went. She told me to read it, then.

Not knowing my alphabet as anything but a song, I couldn’t read. But I proceeded to tell her my version of what was going on in the pictures. I even had characters with names, which the book did not.

My mother was startled by my creativity and ability to tell a coherent story. She told me I’d be a writer when I grew up – not an exciting idea to a three-year-old.

However, my elementary school essays gave no indication of writing talent.

Since my family never took summer vacations because my father didn’t like the beach, my, “How I Spent My Summer Vacation,” was less than a stellar exercise.

My grades were good, since the grammar and spelling were appropriate, but there was little room for creativity. (The nuns would have had a fit if I’d written about traveling to another planet for the summer.)

Not until seventh grade, when the English – Language Arts  – nun believed 13-year-olds should take responsibility for creating two pages a week of whatever they had to say, did I find my voice.

All we had to do was fill two pages. She wouldn’t even read it unless we requested that she do so.

And I did.

Every week.

My condolences to her for the hours she spent deciphering my handwriting and suffering through my attempts – always more than two pages – at poems, plays and essays.

And endless thanks for the words of encouragement she gave me in response.

That exercise taught me to just write and see what happened.

It informed my first university experience, which resulted in dual Bachelor of Arts degrees, one in creative writing.

I tried all sorts of writing, some successful, some not.

My poetry teacher gave me an A, not for talent, but for sheer volume of attempts handed in. He made me promise not to try to become a professional poet because I wasn’t any good at it.

Because he hated Hallmark cards, I would occasionally tease that I was considering applying for a job writing for Hallmark. I’d still like to see a line of humorous sympathy cards, since that’s the time you most need cheering up.

Similarly, biography writing turned out not to be my forte. When I interviewed a friend and wrote a piece based on what he told me, my instructor accused me of making the whole thing up, and gave it a very low grade.

If he was going to assume fiction, that’s what I’d give him.

For my final biographical piece, I invented a character, and wrote his biography. My instructor loved it, having no idea it was complete fiction. For that, he gave me an A.

And so my biographical fiction was born, no research required.

While most of the time characters come to me, I have, on occasion, written a story on request.

Dark Faery was created because a young friend was enamored of Twilight. She suggested that I could write a vampire novel.

 I told her my vampires would not sparkle, and the story would have to be something unlike anything I’d read before. No witches or werewolves to muddy the waters.

Hence, Vampyre Faeries.

Ironically, despite all the telltale hints, as well as Irish and Welsh names of the characters and references to druids, one reviewer wondered where all of this took place, since I never named a country.

Hello.

Faeries know no country.

But here’s a clue for you all: Wales and Ireland, folks.  Wales and Ireland.

I guess I should have drawn a map.

I’ve also created series on request. Both Dark Faery and my Unicorn series were supposed to be one-off ventures. But at the request of readers who wanted more, I turned them into series.

But how to get people to notice?

Write blogs, they said.

It’ll get you an audience, they said.

Well, that hasn’t happened, really. I haven’t had an increase in book sales because of my blogs.

In fact, my blogs are often only read by two or three people. And rarely do I even get comments on the blogs to know what suggestions others might have.

Blog writing is very different from novel or short story writing.

I thought it would be difficult.

I hoped it wouldn’t be as uninspired as my elementary school essays.

It has turned out to be as much of a creative venture as my stories. Ideas come unbidden in the middle of the night when I’m trying to sleep. Whether or not they’re inspired is not for me to say.

The main difference is that my stories are fiction, whereas the blogs are my thoughts and opinions on a particular topic, no characters required.

How’s that for how I spent my summer vacation?