A passionate Reader
I don’t mean a particular poem, song, or novel, I mean what was at the core of you realizing that you wanted needed to write?
For me it was growing up in a home where my mother was an avid reader. She really opened me up to the world of books and I remember as a kid reading every one of the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew books. I was actually disappointed as a child when the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew show was not as good as the books I had read. Learning early on the written word gets instilled much deeper into you than what you see on the screen.
Oh and for those of you who don’t know about the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew books, I am sorry you missed out. But you most likely grew up in a world of Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings. Different generation same love and drive for reading.
Sometime in my teenage years or maybe it was after I left home, but somewhere along the way my mother quit reading. She never gave me a good answer as to why I suspect it was because my dad didn’t like her head stuck in a book all the time.
When my dad had his first Aneurysm surgery on May 8th of 2002 I talked my mom into getting a book to read so that she didn’t sit there worried the entire time my dad was in surgery. This was a tough one and he was expected to be in surgery for quite a few hours.
In that moment I opened her back up to the world of books and created a monster in my wake. She devoured books making up for all the years she lost not reading. I know this because after she passed I found her notes where she kept track of what she read. In that first year back reading my mother read 63 books between May and December.
Over the next few years it was much the same;
2003 – 54 books
2004 – 52 books
2005 – a slow year for her she only ready 26 books
2006 -45 books
2007 -36 books
And 2008 – The year before she got sick and was diagnosed with Cancer she read a whopping 81 books.
In 2009 she and my dad came to live with me and my husband. Dad was very sick in Kidney failure and would die that same year. Mom was soon to be diagnosed with Stage 4 Lung Cancer with Mets to the brain. She read 1 book in 2009 and that was the last book she ever read. She lived until September of 2012 but she was no longer able to enjoy reading.
Still her love for books always instilled in me a love for books and reading and to take it up a notch I love to create. I enjoy a story coming to life in my mind and then on the paper. It is not always perfect. We as writers know that we will always judge our own work the harshest but writing words on the page even as a teenager was I felt I was called to do.
Life got in the way.
I put my writing aside.
I let that little voice in my head that said, “Why are you wasting your time on this it is never going to happen for you,” I let that voice win.
Just like my mother put away her reading for some years I put away my writing for some years as well.
But I plan on devouring my writing just as she devoured books.
I can only hope I instill the same love for books and maybe even writing to my daughter.
So who or what inspired you? What is your story? Why do you HAVE to write?
Life Happens 