Postcards from the Funny Farm

Thanks to Joanna at Confident Writing for offering this group writing project to her readers. I’ve been in love with writing from an early age and it is exciting to share about that on my blog. From making money publishing things to writing a random blog article describing how light and shadows fall, I have too many writing memories to share in one post. Having said that, here are two childhood accounts I’ve selected that started my love affair with writing.

I was an early reader of Dr. Seuss books such as: Hop on Pop, One Fish Two Fish … etc. At age 3 or 4 I was reciting each page to my mother and father as they read with me. In retrospect, I was probably just memorizing what they said and saying it back. But I got a lot of attention from that and that is why I think I continued to read so much as a young kid. Parents would do well to make a note of that. My first memory of getting recognized for writing was in fourth grade. Mrs. Van Diemen (pronounced Van demen) pulled me aside one day and asked me about a paper I had written. This was one of those papers where you use a vocabulary list to insert words that are new to you. I would look them up and then build a story with the new and mysterious words I had just learned. I don’t remember much about it but I do recall it was about a trip to my grandparents’ house for Thanksgiving. I remember one sentence used two vocabulary words: “tranquil” and “serene.” Anyway, she was very impressed with it and she was the school’s “GATE” coordinator (Gifted and Talented Education). She recommended me then and there for GATE and I remained a GATE student throughout my K-12 education. I didn’t always live up to the branding, but I was labeled just the same.

My next memory of writing was for when I wrote a short story that was published for the Orange County Fair competition. I was a few years older and the writing this time was a short story based loosely on the Wind in the Willows. They apparently saw no connection and crowned me for a weekend. I had a picture and story on me in the paper and I got free tickets to ride the rides.

Between then and now writing has been my constant companion and friend. I contribute to my blog daily and online publications monthly and I have had one teaching story published in a book (that was a real thrill). These are not lofty accomplishments by most professional writers’ standards I know, but to me they represent a love affair that is still alive.

I know there are many people nowadays that want to become rich and famous through blogs or other writing endeavors. They meet in back dining rooms of Denny’s and share their writing with groups that critique and supposedly “help” one another other get published. To those I would clarify that even though payment is nice:

if compensation were the main reason I chose to write, I wouldn’t be doing it at all. To me the best payment is the therapy it provides along with positive feedback. Writing and being read makes me feel “seen” and “heard.” Writing in my blog every day is like sitting with a good friend on a country front porch talking about the way the light and shadow falls on things. And even just that is interesting enough to both of us.