The written word, whether reading or writing it myself, has been important to me since I first learned about it in grade school.
Teachers thankfully chose good material to read to us, Harriet the Spy, Charlotte’s Web, and Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH stand out as memorable. As soon as I learned to write I was keeping a journal. On a couple of occasions it was found and read by people who shouldn’t have read it, but such are the risks of early literary efforts.
Extracurricular books and notebooks during class time were later an unauthorized pleasure I engaged in, much to the chagrin of my teachers. Nothing they were teaching was half as important as what I was reading. I remember Stephen King’s original edition of The Stand being one of my constant companions during this time.
In my teen years, I branched further into writing my own stuff, mostly embarrassing poetry. I also remember a class where we were reading The Ox-Bow Incident, the semester ending with a showing of the movie, which was a disappointment even though it starred Harry Morgan and Henry Fonda.
During these years, my writing got fairly decent, and I gave myself enough practice to really enjoy it, even if I don’t always have time any more.
