Kelly suggested last night that I use my pseudonym, Victoria Bell, for my young reader stories and young adult novels. I think that would be a good idea, to keep that writing and my adult writing separate. It would be less confusing.
She has always loved a story I wrote for her when she was in grade school called Halloween Story. so I set her the task of proofreading and editing it yesterday. CreateSpace.com was giving us fits last night, so this morning she received her first lesson in how to self-publish. I put her in the driver's seat and she created the book, uploading the files, choosing a cover design, background color, font, etc. It's a short book at 40-something pages so we chose a reasonable price and now it's in review. Hopefully, we'll be able to order up a proof copy this week and the book will be available in time for Halloween.
Halloween Story is the coming of age tale of a twelve-year old witch, Isabel Doorlin.
The story originated from these two lines, which became the first two lines in the book-
I woke to the now familiar hollow rattle and racket that came clearly through the thin walls. Yes, definitely, it was Mother in the closet again, cleaning the bones.
I'll have to dig out the binders full of stories I wrote for Kelly when she was growing up and see what else I have to share.
Sunday, July 19, 2015
A Passion For Writing
It seems like I have been writing since the very first moment I was able to hold a pencil in my hand and form words on a piece of paper. I'm sure I wrote book reports, themes and brief essays in grade school but my earliest memory of creative writing is fourth grade when we were asked to write about a fantasmagorical gadget- what was it and what did we do with it. My gadget was a sort of time travel machine that sent me back to the Revolutionary War where I delivered a plateful of my mother's toll house cookies to a weary and chilled General George Washington at Valley Forge. General Washington was delighted to receive the cookies.
In fifth grader I was an avid reader, devouring over one hundred books and novels, many at a grade higher than my level borrowed from my sister who was four years older than me, and some on my mother's book shelf as well. I remember my teacher dropping by the house to visit my mother, to view our extensive library and to verify that I had actually read all the books on the list I had given her. I could not get enough of the written word, absorbing everything I'd read like a sponge. I remain an avid reader to this day and have a house full of books ( a trait my daughter has inherited. She also writes.)
In sixth grade we had creative writing as part of our English lessons and that's what sparked my interest in writing. I won an award for my stories about a goldfish in a bowl and his views on the world around him outside the fishbowl. His observations were witty, poignant, winsome, world-weary- beyond anything my classmates produced.
At thirteen I dabbled in poetry, producing two volumes of poems on notebook paper with yarn through the holes to bind the pages together. I think I still have in a file cabinet drawer in the den.
In middle school and high school I was fortunate to have English teachers who supported my writing efforts. A class on Satire opened my eyes to humor and irony and I discovered I could be quite amusing when given a chance to grab a subject and run freely with it. Therefore I went off to college with a major in English, planning on a career as an English teacher but panicked when told I had to present a lesson plan before a video camera and immediately changed my major. I am not one who likes to have my image recorded- photo phobic and the thought just paralyzed me.
It did not prevent me from writing. Writing was my passion and my hobby then and I could often be found lying on my bed writing page after page about families and people I created out of a very vivid imagination. Writing came easily to me and still does. It has always been as if I am taking dictation from a soul that cohabitates with my own. My physical body is the medium through which these stories are told. I can have absolutely nothing in mind as I sit down and pick up a pen, or lay my fingers on the keyboard and then suddenly the words are there, telling a story, sometimes at breakneck speed so that I have to go back and fill in words that were missed in the rush to take them down. I have sometimes reread stories I've written and have no recollection of having written them. My muse is a pretty powerful one.
I am one of those people who has a pen in hand when reading books, making corrections, grimacing and groaning at grammatical errors. My daughter does the same thing. Imperfections drive me crazy. I get annoyed proofreading my own stories and novels, finding errors. That's why I never feel anything is ever completely done...that I am never satisfied with anything I've written. There's always something to be fixed, corrected, edited. I suppose that is what holds me back from finding an agent, submitting more of my work. I just don't feel it's good enough yet. I am self-defeating in that sense.
But still I write. I try to write something every day, but occasionally come home exhausted from work and just need to sit in a chair and play games on my phone to recharge the batteries. A dry spell for me lasts no longer than three days.
One of my greatest pleasures in life is to sit opposite Kelly at the kitchen table, her on her laptop, me on my netbook, both of us writing and occasionally pausing to read aloud something we've just written. We have been doing the NANO novel writing challenge for the past three years. Last year was the only year she actually completed her novel. She made a good effort this year but work interfered and limited the time she had to write. She is my proofreader and editor, in house. And I am hers, although I confess, I am too busy working and writing much of the time to devote as much time as I would like to reading her writing. I can do it in small pieces, a few pages at a time at the very end of the day with the cat curled up on my lap and the house quiet for the night.
Writing runs in the family. My sister writes children's stories and poems. My mother liked to write but never really did much with that other than to write a true story about the one room schoolhouse she and my father bought way up in northern Vermont and renovated into a seasonal camp as it had no running water, and only a huge fieldstone fireplace and a propane gas-fired stove for heat. Kelly spent a lot of time with her grandparents there, riding her tricycle around and around the couch in the center of the room and watching the farmer drive his cows up the dirt road alongside the schoolhouse to the upper pasture, then back down to the barn in the evening. It was an idyllic writer's retreat- very scenic with a view of the valley and mountains, and quiet, except for that blasted donkey at the farm braying its fool head off from time to time.
I feel fortunate to have this inherent gift. My greatest desire is to entertain people with it- to make them laugh, make them cry, make them pause and think a little in the course of their day. Within me is a spring of words. I hope the spring never runs dry.
In fifth grader I was an avid reader, devouring over one hundred books and novels, many at a grade higher than my level borrowed from my sister who was four years older than me, and some on my mother's book shelf as well. I remember my teacher dropping by the house to visit my mother, to view our extensive library and to verify that I had actually read all the books on the list I had given her. I could not get enough of the written word, absorbing everything I'd read like a sponge. I remain an avid reader to this day and have a house full of books ( a trait my daughter has inherited. She also writes.)
In sixth grade we had creative writing as part of our English lessons and that's what sparked my interest in writing. I won an award for my stories about a goldfish in a bowl and his views on the world around him outside the fishbowl. His observations were witty, poignant, winsome, world-weary- beyond anything my classmates produced.
At thirteen I dabbled in poetry, producing two volumes of poems on notebook paper with yarn through the holes to bind the pages together. I think I still have in a file cabinet drawer in the den.
In middle school and high school I was fortunate to have English teachers who supported my writing efforts. A class on Satire opened my eyes to humor and irony and I discovered I could be quite amusing when given a chance to grab a subject and run freely with it. Therefore I went off to college with a major in English, planning on a career as an English teacher but panicked when told I had to present a lesson plan before a video camera and immediately changed my major. I am not one who likes to have my image recorded- photo phobic and the thought just paralyzed me.
It did not prevent me from writing. Writing was my passion and my hobby then and I could often be found lying on my bed writing page after page about families and people I created out of a very vivid imagination. Writing came easily to me and still does. It has always been as if I am taking dictation from a soul that cohabitates with my own. My physical body is the medium through which these stories are told. I can have absolutely nothing in mind as I sit down and pick up a pen, or lay my fingers on the keyboard and then suddenly the words are there, telling a story, sometimes at breakneck speed so that I have to go back and fill in words that were missed in the rush to take them down. I have sometimes reread stories I've written and have no recollection of having written them. My muse is a pretty powerful one.
I am one of those people who has a pen in hand when reading books, making corrections, grimacing and groaning at grammatical errors. My daughter does the same thing. Imperfections drive me crazy. I get annoyed proofreading my own stories and novels, finding errors. That's why I never feel anything is ever completely done...that I am never satisfied with anything I've written. There's always something to be fixed, corrected, edited. I suppose that is what holds me back from finding an agent, submitting more of my work. I just don't feel it's good enough yet. I am self-defeating in that sense.
But still I write. I try to write something every day, but occasionally come home exhausted from work and just need to sit in a chair and play games on my phone to recharge the batteries. A dry spell for me lasts no longer than three days.
One of my greatest pleasures in life is to sit opposite Kelly at the kitchen table, her on her laptop, me on my netbook, both of us writing and occasionally pausing to read aloud something we've just written. We have been doing the NANO novel writing challenge for the past three years. Last year was the only year she actually completed her novel. She made a good effort this year but work interfered and limited the time she had to write. She is my proofreader and editor, in house. And I am hers, although I confess, I am too busy working and writing much of the time to devote as much time as I would like to reading her writing. I can do it in small pieces, a few pages at a time at the very end of the day with the cat curled up on my lap and the house quiet for the night.
Writing runs in the family. My sister writes children's stories and poems. My mother liked to write but never really did much with that other than to write a true story about the one room schoolhouse she and my father bought way up in northern Vermont and renovated into a seasonal camp as it had no running water, and only a huge fieldstone fireplace and a propane gas-fired stove for heat. Kelly spent a lot of time with her grandparents there, riding her tricycle around and around the couch in the center of the room and watching the farmer drive his cows up the dirt road alongside the schoolhouse to the upper pasture, then back down to the barn in the evening. It was an idyllic writer's retreat- very scenic with a view of the valley and mountains, and quiet, except for that blasted donkey at the farm braying its fool head off from time to time.
I feel fortunate to have this inherent gift. My greatest desire is to entertain people with it- to make them laugh, make them cry, make them pause and think a little in the course of their day. Within me is a spring of words. I hope the spring never runs dry.
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