The Reading Writer

I have always been a reader. Always. I don't actually have a memory of not being able to read. My mother was a grade school teacher before my brother and I were born so we were taught that skill earlier on.

In kindergarten, I won an award for reading the most books of any of the students for the school year. (125 books, I believe.) My mother says I ran to the stage to collect my blue ribbon.

I wrote my first book in kindergarten, too. About the adventures of a pinecone. That book still exists somewhere. I'm sure my mom has it tucked away, along with the second book I wrote about my cat, Mystery. That would have been a best-seller, I assure you - any book written on loose-leaf notebook paper and bound with orange yarn is destined to zoom up the charts.

The gift of storytelling came from my grandmother. A petite, quiet German woman with a knack for crazy sayings (you're the boss of the chicken coop, tell it to the preacher, let an electrician check your shorts) and the uncanny ability to imitate Donald Duck, she would send us to sleep with wild tales of kittens and bunnies - all spun from her mind on the spot. Have you tried to make up a bedtime story on the spur of the moment? It's harder than you think.

Anyway, the point is I was a reader first but the desire to write followed very closely. I can trace where it came from, who nurtured it. Is every writer like that? Do you know what pushed you to write? Where your desire came from? Tell me, I'd love to hear it.