Writers' Village University

[an error occurred while processing this directive]

STAFF

You can probably blame my mother for my interest in storytelling. One of my earliest memories is of objecting to the end of a story she was reading to me. She asked me how I would have it end. Later, I remember wishing a story wouldn't end and we would take turns making up sequels to the story.

Eventually, I started drafting my cousin and my brother to play out stories that I made up as we went along. My cousin got her revenge when we were in our teens and she became interested in acting. However, she wasn't completely successful since I made it clear that I was more interested in writing the plays than I was in acting in them. Strangely enough, in college I was the one who majored in drama. I did take some writing classes and edited a class magazine two years.

Surviving Navy boot camp, with not only limited access to a library but a firm restriction to two books allowed in our lockers wasn't easy. The worst time came after our first liberty. Naturally I spent most of it in a bookstore and arrived back at the barracks with a major 'problem'. Friends who had underutilized space in their lockers came to my rescue. I did hear rumors after the next locker inspection that the staff were rather puzzled at the sudden, company-wide interest in science fiction!

Writing? Well, I scribbled a lot but rarely finished anything. I do remember a long 'poem' commemorating a special shared Memorial Day experience, an essay on Tom Paine that I wrote for a national contest and writing up game reports for the WAVES softball team but my fiction writing was all bits and pieces.

Through many jobs and a return to school I continued to scribble here and there. I acquired quite a collection of books about writing. Most seemed to concentrate more on how to get ideas, a problem I never had, rather than how to keep focused and not go off on sidetracks. I even took a night class in typing in hopes that if I could get words down on paper faster it would reduce the tendency to go off on tangents. My first experience with a word processor came through that class and it did make a difference. Finally I finished a story. Finished not just the writing but actually put it in the mail.

Rejections didn't phase me. I simply confided my opinion of the editor's lack of vision to my cat and returned to the typewriter. (My beautiful Satin would listen attentively and then reach out with her soft, furry paw and pat my cheek.) I was confident that if I persisted I would eventually find an editor who would appreciate my work.

Life didn't cooperate. I finally reached the point where I was completely blocked. I didn't stop thinking about stories but the connection between the stories in my mind and getting them on paper became so painful that I couldn't continue.

Giving up didn't work either.

In July of 1998 I finally succumbed to the lure of the Internet. Searching for favorite authors led to discovering articles and discussions about writing.

Then I found Fiction 98. Six simple, focused lessons that took me step by step to the point where I discovered cracks in the block and how to work through them. Everything else has followed, step by step.

[an error occurred while processing this directive]