Who Do You Think You Are?
Me and Quack-Quack. A very Zen name for a duck, don't you think?
I was the kind of kid who had a big white duck for a pet. His name was Quack-Quack. Not very original, but my character naming skills have improved over the years. Quack-Quack arrived in an Easter basket, a tiny squeaky yellow ball of fluff. In retrospect, my mother’s decision to entrust such a fragile creature to an active four-year-old was terribly misguided. But the duckling thrived, and so did I.
From earliest memory, I was a captive of my imagination. Not only did I not mind playing alone, I preferred to. Besides, I was never alone. I made up stories and created fascinating people to keep me company. My parents didn’t read. Not for themselves and not to me. Busy keeping a roof over the family’s head, they could not afford the luxury of sitting down to read fiction, which served no purpose in their lives. They spent their hard-earned income on necessities, and we never had novels or magazines in the house.
Our one luxury was movies. At least once a week for the first five years of my life, my teenage mother bundled me off to the only theater in our small town. For ten cents, we got a feature, a newsreel, a serial and a couple of cartoons. Sitting quietly beside my mother in the air conditioned Cadet Theater was a pleasant way to spend hot summer afternoons. For a few hours, I could lose myself in the make-believe.
Maybe watching all those moving pictures inspired me to make up stories. Or maybe I sat raptly in the dark because I was intrigued by what Hollywood had created. It’s possible that I simply needed to communicate. To tell the world what was on my mind. According to my mother, I started talking early and never shut up.
When I learned to read and write, I realized I could commit my thoughts to paper. A major turning point in the plot of my life. I discovered that books had stories too, and that libraries were stacked to the ceiling with books and the nice lady behind the desk would let me borrow them. Within the pages of the books I read, I could travel to other worlds and times. I could eavesdrop on the intimate thoughts of people very different from me. I was thrilled to find out I wasn’t the only one who liked stories. Writers had been putting words on paper longer than I could imagine. Who knew?
I made up my mind very early. Someday I would write stories for others to read.
Senior Class Secretary-Treasurer, Best Citizen, Homecoming Queen Candidate, Yearbook Staff, Newspaper Staff, Best Dressed.
It took many years to realize that goal. Growing up in a small Oklahoma town, I pursued a more practical career. Fiction wasn’t something written by ordinary people. Fiction was written by….authors. I didn’t know any authors. Had no idea how novels got published. The people in my life were too busy scraping together a living to waste time on daydreams and fantasies. I was told a million times as a child, “Get your nose out of that book and go outside and do something.” My parents didn’t understand I was doing something. Expanding my mind. I didn’t know anyone who read for pleasure and couldn’t discuss the novels I devoured. Certainly no one in my small circle wrote stories. That was a secret I had to keep. A dream I could not share.
My high school English teacher encouraged my writing. He said I had a gift, and I wanted to believe him. But what could I do with a love for words? I moved from my rural home to the city and worked. It took me six years to get to college, but only three to graduate. Eventually I married, had kids, completed graduate school, and worked in a profession far removed from the world of books and words.
Birthday Doll
Because I couldn’t not write, I wrote on the side. I collaborated with another novice writer, and together we produced a number of published romance novels. I continued to work and raise my family. Then my father suffered a debilitating stroke, and I was forced to re-evaluate my life decisions. When he passed away, I realized how short our time in this world can be. If I ever wanted to realize my goal of writing mainstream fiction, I had to get busy. Now. No more postponing the dream. Later might be too late.
So who do I think I am?
A former determined child who raised a fragile little duckling and nurtured an unlikely dream the same way. All I ever wanted to do was make up stories for other people to read.
I am a writer.
And I am very, very fortunate.