"When I grow up, I'm going to..."

[jennifer_d_g]

I have been writing for about five or six years, and when people ask me how I got started, I always tell them about the time I met Korean-American author Helie Lee who said to me, "You've got a story to tell, you should write it," and so I did. We were living in Costa Rica at the time and I wrote a children's novel that was loosely based on our

Comments

[kellyrfineman]

Nope. Like you, I knew it, and then shelved/forgot it, and then found it again.

[jennifer_d_g]

I'm glad you found it again, Kelly. Your passion for reading and writing seems so much a part of you. What made you shelve it? and how did you find it again? A trail of bread crumbs?

[anonymous]

I wanted to be a librarian. Or Jane Pauley. Or a country singer.

[jennifer_d_g]

Is that you, Heidi?

I agree, it would be cool to be Jane Pauley. Funny how no one ever wants to be Deborah Norville.

[tracyworld]

I think it was always there in one way or another, but it wasn't until a friend responded to a letter I'd written with "You should be a writer," that I started to take it seriously.

I'm glad you rediscovered your dream.

[jennifer_d_g]

Hooray for that friend! Tell him/her I said thank you for making our Vinca realize she is a writer. And, yes, maybe that person was the inspiration you needed, you would have gotten - and are getting - the message somewhere else because it is true. You are a writer.

Love your post

[anonymous]

I love that you even forgot it was a childhood dream ... Isn't it funny how adulthood can sometimes pound the wonder out of us until we rediscover it again??

Nope. Didn't even IMAGINE writing was possible because I always thought writers were brilliant people who wanted to walk into rivers with stones in their jackets. Then, one day, I met a REAL writer (Ellen HOpkins) who, to my knowledge, has no desire to do the aforementioned river-walking activity and thought, "Hey. I could do this."

Great story, Jenn!! :)

Heidi
www.heidiayarbe.com