The Long Way Around

I field the question, “How long have you been writing?” thinking of how often I’ve been asked this question. Ten, twenty, thirty times? It’s a valid question and one that gives me pause each time. I think for a moment, considering my answer. I don’t want to sound cliché and give the, “since I was a kid,” answer, but it’s the truth. So, I push aside the redundancy of an answer I think many writers give, and answer with a resounding, “since I was a kid,” to the curious inquisitor.

A simple question that shouldn’t be that difficult but really is. There is truth in the answer. I have, in fact, been writing since I was young. I can remember either third or fourth grade, receiving my teacher’s praise for a poem I wrote about veterans. Reading said poem aloud to the class and having it spoken of as a model of how poetry can inspire. There is also the memory of writing a short story in that same class about a deaf girl whose plane crashes in Alaska and is taken in by Eskimos. Of my teacher sending it on to a competition that won me a place in a creative writing session one weekend at a local college. And writing a story in that session about a dog in a car, staring out the window at a mansion.

So, to say I started writing in elementary school holds truth. However, that answer has complications that are not as simple. My writing journey was a speckled path of uneven stones that sent me teetering in other directions too often. There were the journals of poetry I wrote through high school about break ups and emotions I didn’t know how to express any other way. The formation of the characters in my first novel taking hold through daydreams and listening sessions of Stevie Nicks and Fleetwood Mac. More poems in college as life became confusing and partying made their creation sparse.

And then there were the breaks where writing didn’t happen. Where the muse stayed silent, my attention too distracted, life too chaotic. Years where I silenced her voice and shuttered her behind a wall of reality. She slipped through occasionally, forming daydreams at quiet times, poking at me for attention at other times.

It wasn’t until my late twenties that she took hold of me and shook herself loose. My first daughter was difficult to get to sleep and so I drove her around at night or for naptime, spending time in my car listening to Celtic Woman as the miles passed. Those were the times my imagination came screaming back and the daydreams of those first characters made their way back into my mind like a banshee wailing. A noise I couldn’t drown out. A need I could no longer deny.

I bought a journal, something I hadn’t done in years, and started writing. That journal went to work with me, to the park while I watched my daughters play, and to doctor’s appointments. It traveled everywhere until I had it and two more filled. My true calling had burst back into my life, and it was here to stay.

It took me fifteen years to complete that first book, polish it to my best ability, and gather the courage to query it. In 2018, Ascension was published. Since then, I have refused to silence my writing. It is a part of me, the only time my mind is quiet, the only time thoughts have order, the only moments of peace where I feel whole. And with accepting its presence comes regret that I failed to nourish it earlier, that I let life silence something that is such an integral part of my identity.

Thirty-eight books later, I stand in a tent talking about those books and answering a question that continues to hold ambiguity for me because although it’s true that I started writing in childhood, somewhere along the line, I let the calling become a whisper in the distance. It grew louder in high school and through college until life drowned it out. Only when it became a cacophony too loud to ignore in my late twenties, did I welcome its sound and pick up my pen for good.

My journey as a writer was an intricate patchwork of events that brought me to where I am today. The end was always in sight; I simply took the scenic route to get there.