In the Beginning...

A question I am often asked: "When did you start writing?"

I can´t put an exact date on it, but I was eleven, maybe twelve years old. I started with descriptions.

I was ten or so when we moved from the city to the farm. It was a spread-your-wings-and-learn-to-fly experience. Rocks and sky and rivers and trees. So much freedom. It was an inspiration. Suddenly words formed with rhyme and rhythm, and clamored to be written down.

I can remember standing in a rock hollow in the side of the cliffs above the river and writing about what I saw and heard and felt. The whisper of the wind in the treetops below my high place. The river winding below like a shimmering silver ribbon in the late afternoon sun. The green and yellow and brown patchwork of fields in the rolling distance. The musty, woodsy smell of moss and last fall´s decaying leaves. The shrill heart-piercing cry of a red-tail hawk circling high overhead in the azure sky. The lacy, doily-like grey-green patches of lichens growing on the face of the limestone cliff. That description became a scene in the first novel-length story I wrote. I finished that novel before I was sixteen.

This will probably date me for sure but my brother use to make fun of me by calling me John Boy Walton. It never worked quite the way he intended. I always took it as a compliment.

While my classmates at high school were thinking about their prom date or the next football game, I was thinking about my characters and what conflict had to be resolved.

Now, years later with 28 novel-length stories behind me, I´m still thinking about the next story. It´s as natural as breathing, and for me, as necessary. It is my way of relieving stress. There is something so peaceful, so relaxing about watching words flow onto paper.

I would love to hear about your experiences with writing, or life in general, as well as any questions or comments.

Blessings!