Sunday, November 30, 2008

40 to 40 (Gratitude 25)

I am grateful for the gift of writing. It has always been part of who I am. I remember learning to read as a child and then trying to make up stories and write them out as young as the first grade. My sister and I took the last page of Bambi where Bambi's mate gives birth to twin fawns and made a story around them. We painstakingly traced pictures of the fawns to use to illustrate our book.

When I was in the fourth grade, we got a little blue typewriter for Christmas. We hunted and pecked out stories on that typewriter. And then in high school we got a computer. It was one that had those "real floppy disks." We wrote and wrote on that.

My mom use to get frustrated with how much time we spent on the computer. She didn't need to be. We weren't playing games, we were writing. My sister would write a section and then I would write one and on and on it went. We wrote 3 single spaced novels between 200 and 300 pages each.

In a family that didn't express themselves much, writing was my way of processing feelings. It became the primary way I made sense of the world.

I am thankful for that outlet that it was and is.





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2 comments:

Joyful said...

Oh Amy, how I can relate to this post. I've always been a "writer" too, even if it isn't "official". I still have old stories I wrote as a child - hunted and pecked out on my little orange typewriter.

Being able to write has been "cathartic" for me - a real release of feelings and thoughts - a way to freely express who I really am. I'm so greatful for the gift of writing too!

His pen,
Joy

Anonymous said...

Ditto on this end. I totally can relate to being in a family that had a hard time expressing things to one another. Never thought about that fact and my passion for writing as an outlet and for it being a direct byproduct of that environment. Thanks for the revelation!

God Bless!