Thursday, March 20, 2014

Alan Come Lately

When was the first moment you knew you wanted to be a writer?

Ever since I was able to hold a pencil, I’ve been writing stories. Short ones, long ones, ones about sea serpents and space travelers and swashbucklers. As a child, I’d spend every spare moment spinning tales. I’d fill notebook after notebook with my scribblings, lost on adventures with my imaginary friends. In fact, I become known around town as that “little writing machine.” It got to be---

Wait! Hold on! Stop the presses! Not a word of that is true.

Let me try again, this time with the truth.

When I was in high school, I hated English and I hated writing reports. (Actually, one afternoon when I was about ten, I sat down with my best friend to write the sequel to War of the Worlds. We wrote about a page and a half, then went out to play basketball, never to finish the job.) In college, I didn’t take a single creative writing course (I was required to take a single English class, and Technical Writing qualified). I never wrote anything longer than a grocery list, and even then, I’d use abbreviations. In grad school (business), I couldn’t escape writing altogether, but I made sure that whatever I wrote was as dry as dust and chock-full of clichés, buzzwords, and nonsensical jargon (I fit right in with the future Captains of Industry!).point a to point b

But fiction writer? Never. No way. No how!

And then, about ten years ago, things changed. Now, I spend a lot of time writing fiction.

What caused this reversal?

Beats me!

It sounds like my transformation would make a heck of a story! If only I could find someone to write it…

(This entry “simul-posted” on Criminal Minds.)


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