Reading and Writing

I’m trying to be more creative and more compassionate.

I have always loved to read, loved being read to as a child, couldn’t wait to go to school and learn to read, and grew up with my nose in a book for hours on a daily basis. Reading is still my number one way to relax and enjoy myself.

Growing up, I often created stories in my head about life in far away places that I had only read and dreamed about. Sometimes I would write outlines of the storioes and drawing maps of the settings. In High School I was blessed with two wonderful English teachers who did a very good job of teaching the basics of English and writing, and encouraged me.

 It wasn’t until I was married with young children and the blessing of a new personal computer that I finally started trying to really write down stories that other’s might be interested in reading. My sister gave me a set of manuals from the Institute of Children’s literature, and I studied up a bit. I started out with ideas for picture books, books that I though my own children might enjoy. I bought myself a copy I did send a few manuscripts out, but this was the time when publishers were starting to adopt the practice of accepting queries and manuscripts only from agents, and after quite a few rejections I became discouraged. I then tried writing a few stories and submitted them to magazines, and found my first success with two stories that were published in the Friend Magazine.

I've also spent a lot of time editing our family newsletter during the past 15 years or so.  It's not really creative writing, but it has been enjoyable to do and hopefully fun for the rest of the family to read.

Over the years my children have developed their own wonderful writing skills, and I enjoy reading their school essays and blogs, and anything else that they might allow me to read. My daughters introduced me to NANOWRIMO, and for the past three years I have been a participant! I am currently working on revising my Nano efforts into a manuscript fit to be submitted to a publisher. This past spring I took the plunge and attended my first Writer’s Conference, The LDS Storymaker’s conference held in Salt Lake City. I participated in Boot Camp, where I gained many new insights and ideas about what I want my book to be. The thought of putting my writing out for other to read and critique is quite frightening to me, but if I don’t, the whole point of my writing and creating is somewhat wasted. Right?