When I Knew I Was a Writer

This was another question I was asked on Facebook.

I made up stories before I could write. My mother listened to a soap opera on the radio called "My Gal Sunday.' Since I was a pre-schooler, I listened along with her. I drew my own version of the story, making up new adventures.

When I could read, I read almost anything I could get my hands on, including some very old books of my mother's. I found the "Little House on the Prairie" series, loved it, and wrote my own version of it.

I know I wrote a lot of stories, don't remember any of them, but I do remember writing plays for the neighborhood kids to star in--we put them on in the summer. (This was while I was in grammar school.)

In junior high I put out a magazine and wrote all the stories in it and did the illustrations. This was long before copying machine or the Internet, and I used a contraption called a jelly pad to make copies. About 5 copies was all that came out looking good, then the substance had to be melted down and reset. I sold the magazine for 5 cents to my friends.

Don't remember writing much in high school except what I was supposed to in English classes. 

I got married right out of high school, started a family and as time went on my writing was focused on writing newsletters for PTA, the plays for my Camp Fire Girls to star in. I did write a kids' mystery about a house a friend lived in--and gave it to her. I wrote another story I don't remember, and not sure what happened to it.

And all the time I was reading--lots of romances because my neighbor bought lots of them and lent them to me. The stories I lived the best were based on real family history.

My sister did our family genealogy (long before Ancestry.com and the rest), and it was so fascination but left so many questions, I decided to write my own version of each family's history. It took a lot of research and time--and by this time I was a grandmother. My sister took my chapters to a critique group where she lived, and I got lots of feedback from them--and learned a lot in the process. 

Those two books became, Two Ways West  and Trail to Glory. Both were published and have been re-published. One I was done, I wondered what to write next. By this time, I was reading mysteries so I wrote one--and have been writing them ever sense.

I'm not sure when it dawned on my I was a "writer", but I always knew I was.

Marilyn