I want to do something splendid . . . Something heroic or wonderful that won't be forgotten after I’m dead . . . I think I shall write books.
- - - Louisa May Alcott
I was five years old, sitting cross-legged on the beige and green shag carpeting in our living room, scribbling in my Cinderella coloring book. It was a stormy day in January and the cast iron radiators were spitting and hissing. Icicles jutted down from the eaves of the roof, solidified in midair. A hush had fallen over the city and all I could hear was the mechanical roar of a snowplow.
I looked around at my family. My parents were sitting in matching upholstered chairs, reading the newspaper, hypnotically handing sections to each other and dropping them into a pile on the floor. My older sister was sitting at the kitchen table, writing a book report on Treasure Island. I felt like the odd girl out as I scanned the crowded bookshelves that climbed from floor to ceiling. I wanted to read and write like my big sister did. I was hungry for the adventures that were hidden among the pages, just waiting for me to discover.
When I learned to read in the first grade, my mother and I visited our local library twice a day until the librarian changed the rules for me, allowing me to take out four books at a time instead of two. I devoured the entire children’s section, reading voraciously. Throughout my life, books have offered me solace, richness, surprises and magic. They have opened brand new worlds to me. I can't imagine my childhood without Alice in Wonderland, Charlotte’s Web, and The Secret Garden. Who would I be without Scarlett O’Hara from Gone With the Wind? What if I hadn't met Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy from Little Women or Hester Prynne from The Scarlet Letter? These books taught me about love, connection, isolation, morality, good and evil, what it means to be a friend, and the consequences of lying.
I was in the fourth grade when I discovered whimsical poet, Ogden Nash. Here is one of his amusing ditties:
THE PEOPLE UPSTAIRS
The people upstairs all practice ballet.
Their living room is a bowling alley.
Their bedroom is full of conducted tours,
Their radio is louder than yours.
They celebrate week-ends all the week.
When they take a shower, your ceilings leak.
They try to get their parties to mix,
By supplying their guests with Pogo sticks.
And when their fun at last abates,
They go to the bathroom on roller skates.
I might love the people upstairs more
If only they lived on another floor.
I tried to copy Mr. Nash by dreaming up poetic stanzas that rhymed, my first foray into writing. I wasn’t any good at it. In fact I sucked, but I didn’t care. It happened so organically, I never stopped to figure out whether I was good or bad. I didn't show my poems to anyone so I didn't get any feedback. I didn't build up expectations or suffer trauma and criticisms. No one encouraged me but no one discouraged me either. When I got home from school, I’d sit on the little red cane chair in my bedroom and write because I liked it. I did it every day, not because I thought I should. Not because I wanted to shore up my stamina or get approval from anyone. I didn't fantasize becoming a writer when I grew up. It just felt good to me so I kept on doing it. I didn't realize it at the time but I was smart to keep my writing to myself so no one had the opportunity to steer me toward or away from any particular direction. I just left myself alone and watched the words appear on the page, all by themselves.
These days, some of my writing students have great stories and a burning desire to tell them, but they don’t know how to begin. I noticed that while a few people were ready to dig in, the majority found it really hard to get to the computer. They watered the plants instead of writing, dusted off the bookshelves, or ran the vacuum over a perfectly clean carpet. What were their recurring blocks? How could writers learn to tap into a friendly wave length that could transform their inner critic from a demanding ogre into an encouraging fairy godmother? I wanted to share with them the hidden gateways I’d found over the years that existed beyond the words. I wanted to encourage them to face their fears, to start writing and like it enough to keep on doing it.
It's all about facing one’s fears and going forward anyway. When I go back in time, I see that I started facing my fears in a dream when I was four. It’s my first memory. I was sitting on the black and white diamond shaped kitchen floor tiles in my childhood home, staring down at my ankle socks and white lace-up shoes when I heard a guttural growling sound. I looked up and there was a massive lion on the other side of the room. His roar was so deafening, I covered my ears with my hands to block out the terrible noise. The thick yellow and dark brown mane that encircled his powerful neck was wet with drool that was spilling down across his huge fangs. His eyes were inky and a tuft of thick black hair stood upright at the end of his long bushy tail.
I rushed to the kitchen door behind me and grabbed upwards for the doorknob. It was just beyond my reach. I teetered on wobbly legs when I suddenly realized that I was dreaming and I needed to wake up. I rolled my body into a tight little ball on the floor, covered my head with my hands and waited for the beast to attack. I heard the raspy inhale, I felt a blast of hot wind and I smelled the musky scent as he flew into the air. A moment later, I woke up in the kitchen, standing barefoot at the Formica table, fingering a pink plastic placemat. I had no idea how I had arrived there but I had surrendered to the formidable dream foe that wanted to eat me alive. I had faced my fear and I had awakened and survived.
If you're wondering what this has to do with writing, the answer is nothing and everything. A dream is a dream. It may have no meaning whatsoever. That’s the “nothing” part. The symbolism of facing your fear and waking up, however, is the “everything” part. When you write, at some point you're going to face off with that lion – the fearsome blank page. You’ll have to come to terms with it sooner or later so why waste time? Just start writing something, anything, so you can get the momentum rolling when it feels next to impossible.
Gillian Flynn who wrote bestseller, Gone Girl, said, “I spent a lot of time before I actually wrote my first book going, ‘How do you write a book?’ The answer is, you just write.”
I think a writer who writes fiction is a writer. As a diarist, at times i think it is a curse. Why do I think so much. Why do I have the need to put thoughts on paper or in print. That sentence needs a ? Or can i end it with a dot.