Mel Day is a proudly Australian author. She writes Cozy Mystery, Crime and Suspense where the baddie is dealt with after following the cryptic trail left behind from a crime scene.
Most authors claim to have been writing since they were a wee thing.
I don’t.
My memory doesn’t stretch back that far.
For all I know I could have come out of the womb, gripping a pencil firmly in my clenched fist.
Doesn’t matter.
What matters is that I write.
I agree with Stephen King:
I think that writers are made, not born or created out of dreams of childhood trauma—that becoming a writer (or a painter, actor, director, dancer, and so on) is a direct result of conscious will.
I do know I’ve had a talent for writing since school days, wrote a lot of poetry in my teen years and became a professional advertising copywriter before moving into corporate writing. They’ve all been conscious choices.
Writing is pleasurable and joy is heightened by creating something readers get value from.
As Annie Dillard said:
Why are we reading if not in hope that the writer will magnify and dramatize our days, will illuminate and inspire us with wisdom, courage, and the possibility of meaningfulness, and will press upon our minds the deepest mysteries, so we may feel again their majesty and power?
Be a reader. Be a writer. Take joy from the simple things.