I often wonder why an “over the hill” old fart thinks they can write? If you asked or didn’t ask, here’s the answer! Because I want to write stories, I need to write stories! I have stories bouncing around inside my head, and unless I let them out, they will drive me crazy, or crazier than I am if I let them out!
When I was a little girl, I dreamed of becoming a pitcher for the New York Yankees! I practiced every day pitching at a circle chalked on the barn door. I was 12 before it was revealed that girls aren’t allowed to be in professional baseball, as a matter of fact, girls weren’t allowed in ANY PROFESSIONAL sport! That sucked big time!
I escaped into books where I became the main character. My sex was not a problem. What adventures I had! I could be anything I wanted to be. I lived in those books! A funny thing happened to me when I stuck my nose in a book: my ears would turn off! Literally! Everything around me disappeared, and I flew away to other worlds and became beautiful, strong, and the best thing of all, I always became the heroine and the main character! It was a wonderful thing to never hear “you can’t, because you pee sitting down”.
This amazing ability got me into a lot of trouble! When my mother asked me to do something, I didn’t hear her or anyone else, I definitely heard her when she slapped me on the side of the head. I wrote stories in a steno tablet when I didn’t have my nose stuck in a book. I was determined to graduate from High School because at that time, it was supposed to be my ticket to success! In 1958, employers demanded it. Guess what? It was another dream crushed, damn!
When I was in the 6th grade, we moved from Dexter to Corinna, a different world. We were bussed to a two-room country schoolhouse until the last month of the 8th grade. The teachers taught “readin’, written’, and rithmetic; they were not interested in or had the time to teach grammar. In the last month of the 8th grade, the school district closed the old country school, and we were shipped off to the school in town.
The first day of English, the teacher started talking about diagraming sentences and a whole lot of other things that I was totally in the dark about. It never made any sense to me, and to this day, it still is somewhat of a mystery. Amazingly, I was passed into High School! I remember a conversation with my English teacher. I told her that I hadn’t a clue about diagraming sentences. She said, You will have to learn the answers to the quiz by heart, and I did, at least enough to pass. And might have learned a thing or two!
Want to know something funny? I learned more English in French class than in English classes and could write and translate French as well as anyone.
One of my other English Teachers required that we submit five handwritten pages of anything we wanted to write, be it prose, a story, or even copy something from a book (with acknowledgement). I couldn’t help myself, I had a little fun with him; I wrote stories that always ended in a cliff hanger, and when he asked (in fun, I am sure) what happens next, I would laugh and tell him he would have to wait till next week. Near the end of the school year, he took me aside and told me that I should do something about my writing. The sad thing is, I have forgotten his name.
No matter! I have self-published over fourteen books and am still writing! I usually work on two or more books at a time. One year as a Christmas gift, I wrote a book with a whole family as the characters and sent them as colonists to a newly discovered planet in another galaxy. Oh, there are Dragons too!
Another book is based on my 30-year Real Estate Career. It is a murder mystery, and if some people recognize themselves but with different names, they can relax and laugh, because I changed the names to protect the guilty. Some will laugh, be proud, and be unhappy at my portrayal of them, even though it is accurate.
I have a series of children’s books called Sleep Travelers. I enjoyed writing these because the main character is my baby girl. Little Dawnie takes her three friends, Ning (a Siamese Cat), Dog (a big shaggy dog), and Boss ( an African Parrot), on adventures when they are asleep! They are short, so I have combined two stories. They will be self-published soon.
My Christmas present this year was a Stroke, so my writing slowed down in favor of rehabilitation, which is coming along quite well. I can now write okay. I practiced signing my name so I can sign books.
BTW, These are the places that my publisher Draft2Digital distributes:
Apple Books, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Everand, Smashwords, Tolino OverDrive, bibliotheca, Baker & Taylor, BorrowBox, Hoopla, Vivlio, Palace Marketplace, Odilo, Gardners, Amazon
http://www.brendacolbathbooks.com is another place you can find my books.
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