I didn’t always know I was going to be a writer. I mean, I should have, the signs were always there. I remember countless nights as a little girl, lying in bed, going over the day’s events; replaying in my mind what I overheard Suzie say on the playground to Billy or what my neighbor, Mean Mr. Brown meant when he said, “Get your fluffy fat butt in here!” as he shuffled his way back into his house—Was he talking to Mrs. Brown or was he talking to one of their cats? Then as I drifted off to sleep, I would make up my own scenarios for what could’ve taken place beyond those snippets of conversations.
I loved to live in the fantasy world of books. If I wasn’t out with my friends, chances were that I was holed up someplace with my nose stuck in a book, dreaming about the day that my prince would come and whisk me away on his white horse.
Well… at least until I got into high school and found my first Steven King novel, then it wasn’t so much the white horses I was expecting to show up, as It was the creepy clowns with the red balloons.
One day in my early thirties I had reached the point where I couldn’t find the ending I wanted in a book, so I started writing my own endings, then my own beginnings. Then finally, I wrote my first beginning that had an ending with a little meat and potatoes in between.
The article below was the first thing that I ever published, and it will always hold a special piece of my heart for a multitude of reasons. I hope you get to enjoy a little bit of beauty yourselves today…
Beauty
It was a perfect June day: Eighty degrees and not a cloud in the sky. I was lying on my front lawn daydreaming when my mother’s voice floated through the air, “Sis, can you come inside for a minute?”
Here we go again, I thought. We’d had a fight the night before over my desire to wear makeup— “war paint,” my father called it. My mother’s feeling was that beauty wasn’t on the surface, so why bother? I was a teenager and just wanted to catch the eye of the new boy at school. Besides, all my friends wore makeup. I was still a little ashamed of the ugly things I’d said to my parents during the argument, but I wasn’t about to admit it, so I hitched my chin up a little higher on my way into the house.
I found my mom and dad sitting hand in hand at the table. Worry creased my dad’s brow. I knew then that this had nothing to do with makeup.
I sat there feeling unable to breathe as my mother told me she had ovarian cancer. She’d been given an 80 percent chance at survival, she said, and could live many more years if the treatments were effective.
Wait a minute. What did she mean “could live?” Of course she could live, she was my mother. That’s what mothers do. All my friend’s moms were doing it!
In truth, it only took eight months for the cancer to ravage her body. During that time my father rarely left my mother’s side. He was her nurse when she got sick from the chemotherapy. He was her ambulance driver when she needed to be rushed to the hospital. And he was her best friend when she just needed someone to hold her hand.
During those eight months, I came to understand what my parents had been trying to tell me about beauty. It wasn’t in the makeup we put on our faces or in the clothes that we wore. It was in the way he looked at her, in the way he cared for her, and in the way they lived life together.
—Published in the September 2010 issue of the Sun Magazine.
If you love to read, I bet there is a big chance that you would love to write. There are a ton of informational books, writer’s conferences and workshops all around the country to get you started. Some are in person, some are on Zoom, and some are hybrid—In person and on Zoom.
I personally, highly recommend the book, If You Can Talk, You Can Write by Joel Saltzman. It’s a great guide for a beginner who is overwhelmed at the prospect of getting started. Basically, it instructs you to just have a conversation with the piece of paper. Like you are telling a story over a cup of coffee to your best friend.
Also, it’s a great reminder for a more advanced writer that is struggling with a piece or maybe has been struck upside the head by the mighty writers block—a great refresher to just calm down and write your story like you were telling it out loud at a party.
If you’re feeling like breaking into the world of conferences. I, of course, recommend Willamette Writers. The conference is in Portland, Oregon every year at the end of July / beginning of August. There are tons of masterclasses, workshops, agent and editor opportunities and many many networking possibilities which are completely invaluable no matter where you are in your writing career.
Until next time my friends; stay brash, stay bookish and stay true to your beautiful self!
Lisa,
Thank you for sharing this with us. It’s beautiful.