A good friend of mine asked me recently about what inspired me to begin this business of coaching writers. It was actually a bit of a round about way.
I come from a big, fun family of five kids in which every day was jammed with activities and Hostess snacks. Plowing through book series like Nancy Drew, The Hardy Boys, and Little House on the Prairie provided the quiet time that I needed to escape the daily chaos. I think my Dad needed the down time, too, because he paid me and my siblings a penny for every page we read. My friends mowed more lawns and shoveled more driveways than I did, yet I’m convinced his creative answer to “the chore system” really gave me that added push toward the world of books.
It wasn’t until the tender age of 11 that my writing career began. I wrote a book entitled, “A Dog’s Thoughts.” Yes, these are my hilarious hand-drawn illustrations from the 1979 “published in pencil” final draft!
This first book was the result of an assignment given by my 5th grade teacher. The class was assigned to write a book that would be officially sent to press through Mrs. White’s Classroom Publishing House. The pride I felt when I presented my parents with my first book was off the charts.
I was further inspired by my 9th grade teacher at Phillips Andover. Ms. St. Pierre asked us to write a short story, which reflected the theme of our year long course called “The Journey.” Easy enough! I immediately raised my hand and asked, “Does it have to be short?” I wrote a Halloween story that I recently edited into my first self-published book, Silent Knight, about a boy with a stutter who learns about love and loss during his journey towards young adulthood.
Even though my childhood was packed full of skis, baseball gloves, soccer jerseys and field hockey sticks, I also had an unquenchable thirst for reading and writing. When a boy caught my interest and my kick ball skills did not quite seal the deal, I assumed a love note could. Hey, it worked once on a boy in the 4th grade.
I thought I’d died and gone to heaven during my third summer of college. I came home to Andover and took an internship at The Eagle-Tribune as a Sports writer. I felt very lucky to be able to merge my two favorite hobbies into one job. It was around this time that I started to consider teaching English. My four years at Middlebury College afforded me the experience and the professors to begin to make that dream a reality. I felt called to impart ideas to others just like my teachers had done for me.
It wasn’t long before my writing life consisted of dozens of songs, multiple screenplays, countless poems and one published book. My latest endeavor is a book called 1978, a novel loosely based on yours truly and her four amazing siblings weathering all the fun that year packed, from the Blizzard of ’78 to Disney World to a little incident involving some fireworks and a sheepish set of 10 year-old triplets. Just like those days when my dad said a penny a page seemed like a better way to get through a rainy Saturday than weeding his garden, I still find myself starting and ending every day with a book in my hand, a new lyric for a goofy guitar song in my head, or a slightly more serious attempt at a new chapter in a book about … well … a journey.
What will be your first book, poem, or song? Let’s connect so I can help you find your inspiration!
