Mental Meanderings

What made me want to become a writer? Actually it was Harry Potter. Something happened to me when I read Harry Potter. I may have just happened to read Harry at the write time (get it? ha!) Harry Potter woke up something deep inside me. It took me back to that time when I was a child in love with books. Suddenly, just to be in the company of people who do this thing called writing seemed like the most important thing in the world and I began to dabble, not having the first idea what I was doing. I mentioned this to one of my friends who had written a book. She encouraged me to come with her to the SCBWI conference. I did and listened mesmerized as Anita Silvey talked about all my favorite children’s books; Anne of Green Gables, Wind in the Willows, The Secret Garden, Little House on the Prairie and on and on.

I can remember details about what I was doing and how I felt about every one of those. For example, I remember curling up on my bed with Little House. My bed had a soft white bedspread. The heat vent was right underneath and warm air blew up beside the bed, keeping me from shivering right along with the little girls that lived on the cold, cold Prairie. I was in little-girl-reader-heaven.

I read the Secret Garden curled up on the couch in front of our picture window. It was fall and the weather was cool and misty, just like I imagined the Moors would be. To this day, I call that kind of day a “secret garden day” and so do my kids.

I didn’t read Wind in the Willows as a child—but I read it to my children sitting out on a blanket after having a picnic lunch. Every day we’d retire to the shady place under the dogwood tree and have adventures with Mole, Rat, and Badger.

I read Anne of Green Gables as a young girl. I found Anne to be a true kindred spirit. I think Anne may be the reason I write for young adults rather than children.

These days creating worlds and the people who live in them gives me just as much joy as reading my first books as a child. As Anne would say: Ah, such scope for the imagination!