The Spark Blogfest: Who Set You Off? (Part One)

This week I'm participating in Christine Tyler's blogfest and talking about who and what made me decide to be a writer.

I don't think there's one, huge defining moment or person who inspired me to be a writer. As long as I can remember, when people asked me what I wanted to be, I told them an author. (Okay, no, that's only half-true; in my painfully shy days, when someone spoke to me, I would squeak and hide behind my mother. And then she would tell them I wanted to be an author.)

My love for words and books started at a young age, so I might as well start at the beginning. My favorite book when I was little was "A Pocket for Corduroy".

I loved this book with an obsessive love that defines four-year-olds. I wanted it read to me over and over and overandover. My mom was really good about reading to me, but it is a wordy little storybook, and a mom has to make dinner sometime, so one day, after our fifth-in-a-row reading, she set it down and got up from the couch. I begged for another read through. I was denied.

I didn't let it deter me. I don't remember wondering if I could read it myself. I just remember opening it up because I didn't want it to be over.

The first sentence is, "Late one summer afternoon Lisa and her mother took their laundry to the laundromat." I asked my older sister what each of the words were, and then read the rest myself. And then I read it again. And then I read some more. I started reading everything. (side note: early reading is great, but can also cause panic attacks, like when I read the symptoms of prostate cancer [getting up at night to pee!], and, even though I had no idea what a prostate was, convinced myself that I had it.)

I guess loving to read doesn't always equal loving to write, but it's where I started. It was my first spark.

**Also starting today is Rachael Harrie's third Writers' Platform-Building Campaign. It's a great way to network and make new friends and Rachael is super-awesome, so go check it out!