In the Beginning
Time is really starting to amaze me, fascinating actually. How it is but a vapor and goes by so fast. But I still can remember like it was yesterday… As far back as I can remember; I’ve always desired to create. I remember as a five or six year old little girl, I would sit in our den and cut out people from my mother’s nurse’s catalogs and make homemade paper dolls. I then would turn my favorite pink blanket into what I thought was a town for the people to live in. It is so vivid in my mind even now. My mom would be in the kitchen and I would play for hours by myself, creating stories and worlds that I got lost in. But I created them and it brought such joy, fun and excitement to a little girl’s life. I was the only girl with two older brothers, so I often created worlds that I literally lost myself in for hours. I would occasionally see my mom watching me as I made my little cities with paper dolls. She smiled and often wondered and said, “how does she play by herself for hours on end?" Probably if someone came into the room and just saw a blanket with cut up paper, they would consider it such a mess. But for me it was my own creation, a little kingdom of sorts. It went from paper dolls to writing stories about the paper dolls. From stories about the paper dolls to stories about characters on television. Ah, the characters on television.…
As a child, I loved soap operas. I was just fascinated with the way the women dressed. They would come to the door with gowns on and wake up with make-up and not a hair out of place. Even as a child, I was so intrigued with the stories being told. I loved soaps so much that once when I was in third grade, I had to stay after school. I sat there quietly for a while and took my punishment. But when I looked up at the clock, I noticed that it was two-thirty. I quickly gathered my things and headed out the door. My teacher, visually taken aback, runs after me and asked, “Where do you think you’re going young lady”? I politely and respectfully said, “I have to go, my stories are on”. You could hear crickets. Her mouth wide open in disbelief, I said, “the Guiding Light is coming on”. Of course, my parents were called immediately. Although I was reprimanded, I vividly remember the smirks on my parent’s faces when they talked about what I had done. Thus began my passion for writing stories.
In fourth grade I wrote a play I titled, “The Mystery of The Own Known Killer”. The killer’s name was Mr. Peabody. I was enthralled with Mysteries, Dramas and Who Dun Its. I Loved Alfred Hitchcock, Agatha Christie and the list goes on. So needless to say, from a young age, I knew only one thing and that was, creating compelling characters through storytelling was something I found joy in.
