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Where Does My Love of Writing Come From?
Hint: it’s a quiet place
I was an only child. I was lucky to have friends my age in my neighborhood, and to have grown up in a time (the 1980s) when kids socialized together most days where possible. But I also had plenty of time to myself, which I filled with playing with my toys, inventing fantasy worlds that were in retrospect probably way more complicated than they needed to be(!), and of course I loved to watch tv. What Gen X kid didn’t?
But from a young age, I was also an avid reader.
I still remember the layout of the library where I grew up in Norfolk, Virginia. It was a casual, modest affair. I remember how the smell and quiet soothed me. The kid’s section was decent but relatively small, and once I was allowed into the adult stacks my imagination took over.
I usually read a few years above my age/grade, within reason. I remember books were treasured gifts from early on. I read all of the Nancy Drews, the Hardy Boys, the young adult section as I grew older. I tended to read anything I could get my hands on.
By the time I was twelve I was reading a lot of (adult approved -ish!) books. I was an Old Hollywood film fan so read some fairly risqué biographies and autobiographies, back before they cared about censorship so much (Marlon Brando’s made me blush!). From…
