Writing

Good morning! I figured I'd relate some of my history with writing. I began writing when I was a child - not just writing poems that my mother then bound up with ribbon and a cover made out of wallpaper samples - but also my own little newspaper that I circulated among friends. My favorite books to read at that time were Nancy Drew and The Bobbsey Twins. A favorite book of mine as I grew older was the touching Up a Road Slowly by Irene Hunt. If you ever get the chance to read it, please do. You'll see that it has tons of high ratings on Amazon, and it was a Newberry Medal winner.

My poems were shared with my grandparents, and my stories in high school were not shared - just shared with my teacher who gave me lots of encouragement. In fact, he was one of my favorite teachers (Dr. Alex Costea), who unfortunately died too soon from cancer.

In my early twenties, I tried marketing a story I'd written about my dad and my experience growing up in an alcoholic, abusive home. At that time there was a magazine for Adult Children of Alcoholics. My story was turned down, but they advised me to keep writing.

Life, love, parenting, school, and work delayed my writing for many more years. Finishing up my English degree while attending to other areas of my life was challenging, but I got my degree in the end from George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia.

I didn't return to writing until my mother died - and you know the rest. It was the trigger for my book, Poetry on the Loss of a Mother, and another book about my mother's life growing up in Richmond, Lost But Not Forgotten: My Mother's Life.

After I felt I'd managed to share my grief and my mother's life, as she would have wanted me to, I think, I decided to publish some of my more upbeat poetry and some children's poetry books. Thus came about My Poetry Bouquet and my two children's poetry books, Poems from the Schoolyard, and A Child's Poetry Companion: Poems from the Countryside.

Right now, I have my efforts scattered in all directions. I'm thinking of writing a children's book, and I'm working on a book about life growing up in an alcoholic home. I'm investigating more ways to market my books, and I'm constantly learning new things from members of a writing group to which I belong.

This is the first time I've belonged to a writing group. In college, we evaluated each others' work in class, but this is new. I studied English literature and writing in college, along with a focus in folklore. Anything that has a story attached to it interests me.

Well, that's my blog for today. Have a wonderful day!