A Baby Boomer Is Born: I am born in a small town in North Central Texas the same year Humphrey Bogart dies, the same year "Beatnik" becomes a commonly used word in the American vocabulary and the first living being…a dog…orbits outer space on Sputnik II. Author Jack Kerouac’s On the Road and Dr. Seuss’s The Cat in the Hat hit bookstore shelves that year, the play West Side Story opens in New York City, and Bridgette Bardot’s movie And God Created Woman sparks controversy over its sexual content. What is the year of my birth? I’ll let you figure it out.
Hittin’ The Road: When I’m a year old, my dad changes jobs and he, my mom, my older sister and I move west to California. Over the next ten years, two more sisters are born into our family and we move twenty-two times as my dad’s work takes us to locations in six different states, all more than once. We live in Texas, Colorado, New Mexico, Kansas, Arizona and California. During my second grade and fifth grade years, I change schools four times. Not only do I learn adaptability, our travels enrich my life with new and ever-changing experiences…great fodder for the imagination of a writer-in-the-making. In Kansas, I live across from a cornfield and my friends and I often play hide-and-seek within the tall stalks. In Arizona, we live close enough to an Indian Reservation that on windy days, I sometimes hear the eerie beat of ceremonial drums and the beautiful haunting chant of Native-American songs.
However, our gypsy life has its challenges, too. Settling into a new town and making friends I will soon have to tell goodbye isn’t easy. I find familiarity in books. I love their solid weight in my hands, the promise of discovery and safe adventure between the covers. I love the rhythm of words and the comforting crackle of turned pages. Most of all, I love the fact that, no matter how many unfamiliar faces surround me in a new classroom, when I open a book, I’m certain to find a friend in the story’s protagonist. Someone I will care about and root for and spend time with, someone I won’t have to impress or win over, someone who will always be there waiting between the covers.
I find I enjoy stories so much, I begin writing terrible limericks and poetry and try my hand at a few short stories and essays. My grandma sends my limerick about a frog and a fly that fall in love to Reader’s Digest, and she is astounded and irritated when they don’t publish it. (Don’t you just love grandmothers?) Hmmm. If Grandma thinks my writing is something special, maybe it is…I enter my fifth grade essay contest, writing on the topic “Our Flag,” and win first place. The school has an award ceremony. My parents attend. I decide I like all this recognition. From that point on, when people ask what I want to be when I grow up, I tell them, “A writer.”
Lazy Days Of Summer: Each summer we return to our hometown in Texas to visit. Those warm days are filled with the laughter of grandparents, cousins, aunts and uncles…and more memorable experiences to feed my imagination. Watermelon parties in the park with all the extended family, spying on my grandparents’ one-armed neighbor, dares from my cousins to walk up to the spooky old house at the end of my grandparents’ block, their mysterious back yard and the tall bush trimmed into an archway that led into it.
Back To Texas: The year before I start junior high, we move to the Texas Panhandle and settle there. We add another member to our family. A brother, this time. Once I start high school, then college at West Texas State University (now West Texas A&M), I continue reading fiction but my writing goes into hibernation while I focus on things like business classes, friends and falling in love. Despite living my own version of Saturday Night Fever, complete with nickel beer nights and embarrassing disco dance moves, I earn a degree in Business Management and, in lieu of attending my graduation ceremony, attend a wedding ceremony. Mine.
I add a new state to the line-up of places I’ve lived when I move to Oklahoma for a year while my husband finishes Pharmacy school at the University of Oklahoma. My frivolous dream of being a writer long forgotten, I become “sensible,” pull on my pantyhose, and set out to make a living in the business world. (Besides, I don’t know any writers. They’re all bohemians who live in places like Europe or New York City, aren’t they?) In addition to working, I return to school to earn a second degree in accounting.
Accounting Doesn’t Compute: Though accounting might seem a more sensible job than writing, for me it is no more so than my becoming a lion tamer or a World Federation Wrestler. I’m afraid of lions and intimidated by wrestlers. The same is true of numbers. Still, I plod on through a confusing maze of debits and credits.
Fast forward through a few unsatisfying jobs, running a business with my husband, and two beautiful babies. I decide to stay home and raise my kids. While doing so, the old dream awakes and nudges me. I sign up for a night class in creative writing at the local community college. Soon I’m hooked. Six years, two completed novel manuscripts, a couple of children’s book manuscripts, four or five short stories, and a big fat folder of rejection letters later, I get “the call.” I’ve sold a novel! My contemporary paranormal romantic comedy “Body and Soul.”
Living The Dream: Being a published writer continually brings more fascinating people and fun experiences into my life. Some are real, some only in my imagination…. I remind myself daily how lucky I am to be able to do work I love. And, perhaps best of all, no pantyhose are required.
