Why I Write

My writing career began when I was three years old. I knew there were words but the words did not click. Enter in Sesame Street. The word of the day, back in the 1970s, was 'bus.' Suddenly that group of letters meant that thing. I wrote that word on everything. On the paper dinner napkins. On books. In notebooks. On tissues. I wrote 'bus' on the steamed up mirror in the bathroom. I distinctly recall doing this. I distinctly recall the shiver it gave me to know I knew this word intimately and it belonged to me. No one could take it away from me.

The words multiplied. By first grade, I was composing little poems for my mother. Now, I have always been a little quirky. When we had to write about what we wanted to be when we grew up, while all the other girls wanted to be nurses and teachers, I wanted to be a waitress. You see, my favorite restaurant of all time-now long gone-was a local pizza place called Rudolph's. The food was divine and the waitress that usually served us was hip. I wrote about her in detail and artistically drew the black and red interior to almost exact. The teacher tried to talk me out of it. I would not budge.

By third grade, I was regularly composing stories and tales when I was supposed to be doing other things. It was then that I broke into my first female power piece, an off-take of Three Men in a Tub. I had two older sisters and I made up this poem in a bubble bath that they had poured for me one night. It went like this:" Rub a Dub Dub/Three Girls in a Tub/and who do you think they might be?/One is Virginia, one is Vanessa and the other is Valerie."

"They took a trip in a great big ship/and sailed out to sea/Along came a shark and opened its mouth/and swallowed poor Valerie. Up jumped Virginia and Up jumped Vanessa/who made that shark open its mouth/and out jumped Valerie. Up jumped Virginia and Up jumped Vanessa/and they all swam out to shore/and decided not to do that anymore."

It won the blue ribbon in the county language arts fair. I was bitten by the bug. There was no looking back ever. My career-as a writer-is not only a career; it is a calling. I love what I do. I love every single day of my life. No, I haven't become rich. I don't care. I have come to love the lull of the words blowing off the various trees in my mind. They scatter with the emotion of my heart.

I dream sometimes that Harper Collins is knocking at my door for the next bestseller that I so happily hand over to them as they pass me the six-figure advance. But publishing is changing right before our very eyes. At first I was hesitant to join it-you know, the blogging, the web zines, the e-book.

I believe that with any career you choose, in order to be successful, you have to absolutely love it. I have never understood why people choose a certain profession-even go to college to pursue it and then complain about it all the time. Life is just too short-better move on to something you really like and chance a career change.

I myself have had some straying off the writing lane. I stuck with it in Academia, and finished an English degree with highest honors. Then the real world came knocking. I was interested in writing, but my parents had a few opinions. They were not going to support me while I wrote the Great American Novel. It was time to get a job.

I love design and this funneled me into a few of my career choices. Yet inevitably I found that I always pulled writing into the mix. I worked in sales and public relations in downtown Atlanta and lived the fun life in Buckhead. I have been a Bridal/China Consultant in some major retail chains. There, for example, I found myself writing ad copy instead of my actual duties. I then owned my own flower shop in my hometown and I even wrote a few love poems to attach to the posies for some desperately wannabe romantic men. Yes I charged for it.

Flower shop ownership was not for me however and after a few years, I pushed myself out of it. I have worked as a pager and cell phone salesperson. At a week-long business meeting in Nashville, we had to write a skit for sales-of course I won. I used the points certificate to purchase some hot curlers. Hey, don't laugh-I still have them. And then I worked in two different nursing homes as an Activities Director, and in both, I created newsletter where there had been none before. After I left, I believe they ceased to exist. My first job out of college was to work for a local arts agency-they took all the writing I could give them. Funny, I absolutely love working on a grant-I love the picky detail of it.

I grew up in a mill town in North Georgia and for many years-especially the Atlanta ones-where I tried to be a lofty writer above myself. If there is one thing I do know about writing, is that you have to write what you know. You cannot, like me, write about being a fair English lady in the Victorian age, if you really know nothing about it. The writing will have absolutely no authenticity and the reader will know it. So you have to pull yourself down to who you are and write about what you truly know.

For me, that has spawned some interesting works. I am as Southern as Southern can be. As of right now, I have twenty children's book manuscripts sitting in a filing cabinet, two novels and a young adult novel that is gingerly entering the publishing process. Being a writer is not for the faint of heart. You have to grow a very thick skin and you have to be persistent. I have learned this the hard way-you have to push and push even harder every single day. Honestly, writers need to write every day, regardless-unless you are on your deathbed. For example, today, I have a fierce cold, but I have written myself through it.

I have been married for ten years and I have two small children. I stay at home-but I am always working. I bounce a toddler on a knee while I review my blog. I go over character conversations in my head while I change diapers. Writing is adaptable and writing is flexible. I did not used to believe that-I thought I had to be sequestered away from the world. But I always tired of myself. I feel I am much more prolific these days due to being surrounded by distractions. It is the distractions that fuel originality.

Having minored in History and Political Science, I feel a pull in that direction. So I created a blog. I write about educational issues-and lack thereof-in my great home state of Georgia. I thrive on it and I find that practice makes perfect. The more you write, the more that will come to fill up the well. You must always give it your all when you are writing-don't hold back and don't save material for a later day. You must get it out, with gusto. Write every piece as if today were your last day to write on this earth.

So why did I choose this career? I didn't. It chose me. I belong to the muse. If writing is your passion, then write and write and write some more. I have riches untold-not on the material line. I stopped thinking about big paychecks a very long time ago. As long as I am at the page, I never desire the things that I simply do not have the money to buy. Yes, my husband supports me financially so I can do this passionate thing of my heart. But he supports me emotionally as well. As a team, we feel if my words inspire one child to write and keep the written word alive, then I have completed my job here on earth.

Oh yes a Pulitzer would be nice. Or a Nobel prize for literature. What a wonderful dream. But perhaps that is not meant for me. I will be just as satisfied one day, when I am departed, to see a child grown up achieving just that as I look down from the heavens. To know I may have planted one tiny seed in the pursuit of that achievement will be my reward from the Great Creator-the original artist.

I pursue educational issues like a bloodhound. I know people don't understand why-and they chalk it up to more of my quirkiness. Yes, well maybe. I just want to see the children-all children-of Georgia and America to be able to pursue my chosen career if they so choose-but truly, they have to have the educational background to actually pursue it. This is why I write. This is why writing is my career of choice. But writing chose me-it placed me on this path many years ago, when I was just a little tiny kid intent on hopping on the word 'bus.'