And on the First Day...a Writer was Born

Today, I've been trying to remember when my love for writing started. Then I realized, that it was not one set moment in time or place, but a series of events that propelled me to get my work out there.
When I was little, I remember my mom reading me the book Where the Red Fern Grows. I was pretty young, but I distinctly recall sobbing my eyes out when the dogs died at the end of the book (sorry, if that's a spoiler for you.). I have never read that book since. I'm worried about ruining something that was truly magical to me. That book taught me that written words have power. Power to make someone laugh, cry, or cuss depending on their mood. Once I understood that--the love of words in general could not be contained.
A couple of years later, two things happened that increased that love exponentially. One, I was the winner in a contest throughout the whole third grade to read the most amount of pages. I can proudly state that I read 20,000 pages that year. I think I won some money--I don't really remember--but what I do remember is that part of the prize package included the book A Wrinkle in Time. I read it cover to cover and understood not one word of it. At first, I was disappointed, until I realized...if they would give me a book this weird and hard to understand, they must think I'm really smart. However, I shelved the book (that is until sixth grade when I read it again, three times, and loved it.)
The second thing that happened, is that I won third place in a writing contest. It was a letter to Santa asking him to quit smoking. The section I was most proud of went something like this. 'If you don't quit smoking, you'll get really sick, and Mrs. Claus will have to take care of you. Pretty soon, she'll get sick of it and start to hate you. The next thing you know, she'll be suing you for ruining her life. So you see, Santa, smoking isn't worth it.' Don't ask me where that logic came from, but I remember adults laughing about it. I thought it was pretty cool I could make adults laugh with stuff that I wrote. From then on, I strove to be funny in my writing.
In ninth grade, in my English class, I wrote a story called 'A Day in the Life of a Flea'. The main characters were all fleas living on one dog. It was a love story, and the main character--Fleadrick I think his name was--steals a girl from the school bully. The bully breaks his leg, but it isn't so bad because he has so many others. In the end, Fleadrick learns that all is fair in love and war. I wrote it in one night, and the English teacher ended up reading it to all of his classes. (At least, that is what he told me.) In my own class, I was both extremely proud and extremely embarrassed. When the other kids in my class period laughed about it too, however, it was all worth it.
The next step on my road to becoming a writer came my Sophmore year of high school. Mrs. Bridges, my English teacher, assigned us a persuasive paper about the Gulf War. I, of course, procrastinated it and ended up writing it during an assembly we luckily had that morning. My paper was 'for' going to war and the benefits to humanity when we help those less fortunate than us. I didn't have a good feeling about it. Mrs. Bridges was one of the hardest teachers I ever had. When the paper came back, however, a huge A+ graced the top of it, with a little note. 'See me after class'. I sat through the rest of the period with a huge stomach ache, worried that she would tell me she knew I had written it in an hour, and the good grade was a joke. After everyone had cleared out, I trudged up to her desk, ready to hear the worst, but it wasn't bad news. Mrs. Bridges told me I was an amazing writer and asked if I would give her the paper to submit to a magazine. I never knew if she actually did, or if the article was ever published, but I gained confidence that maybe I really could BE a writer.
Fast forward to college and a professor I will never forget the name of--Dr. Diana Major Spencer. My first paper in her class scored only a C, the lowest grade I had ever gotten in an English class. She told us we were welcome to revise as many times as we wanted to bring our grades up one full grade. I poured my blood, sweat, and tears into that paper, and after seven (yes, seven) revisions I pulled the grade up to a B. What a lesson that was...writing is hard work? What? There must surely be something wrong. Writing isn't supposed to be hard. Yet here I was, up into the wee hours of morning, revising and changing and editing. It just didn't seem fair. After graduation, my writing career pretty much ended. I got my diploma in Elementary Education and became a teacher, the only job I ever unequivacully loved. My favorite subject to teach, by far, was writing. I attempted stories and novels, but could never get my characters jump out of the page and join me in writing about them. Each story seemed to be missing that internal spark that made it come to life. Finally, one day, I decided to sit down and write a novel, a romance novel. I made myself the main character, and my high school boyfriend the love interest. Suddenly, using real people for the characters, I could see them as something more than just a name on a page. Characters were people with feelings and back stories and skeletons in their closet. It was a turning point in my writing.
I scrapped that novel, but the lessons I learned from it have changed me as a writer. Now, with one novel completed and under my belt, I feel like my characters actually exist outside the book, like if I went to this town they live in, I might run into them. Characters and voice have become my strengths.
In all, this writing life has been an adventure. Now I'm taking it to the next level--trying to publish. This, I realize, is where the work begins, but I'm willing to go the distance. I've won, I've lost, and I've learned. Now I'm ready to share my work with the world.
So now you know me, the writer. Get ready to share your stories with me...