On becoming a writer

Several months ago, shortly after my latest book came out, one of the local book clubs invited me to speak at an upcoming meeting. I assumed it would be about the book and how it evolved. Instead, the organizer asked if I would talk about my writing career in general. How I became a writer.

That got me thinking. I wasn’t sure what the answer was. How did I become a writer? So, I looked.

It certainly was not something I intentionally pursued, although I always thought it would be cool to be a writer. I just kind of backed into it.

Thwarted attempts to finding THE  path

I began my adult life as an educator, following in my parents’ footsteps. I even went back to school for a PhD in school administration so I could make a bigger impact in the field.

In the late 1970s, I got involved with some local activists in Alabama and helped produce a monthly newspaper. I wrote some of the articles and later put together a small booklet documenting the impact on women of the current administration’s policies.

Neither of those experiences occurred to me as writing. They were actions necessary to support a cause I cared about.

Professionally, I moved on after a decade in the school business. I spent five years as a planner with the Georgia Department of Corrections, focusing mostly on the Probation Division. Delving into unexciting research and endless studies, I loved the challenge of interpreting my findings so they made sense to others. Putting facts and ideas together in an understandable but simple manner lit me up. 

That’s when I discovered I had a passion for writing that I didn’t know I had. But I also didn’t know what to do with this passion. I thought maybe I could write children’s books. With a young child at home, that was certainly familiar and interesting to me. I figured at least I could do a better job than those who perpetuated stereotypical nonsense.

Discovering the writer in hiding

Instead, I took a job as an entry-level copywriter at the “Macon Telegraph.” Remembering rousing newsroom scenes from “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” and “Lou Grant” series, I expected that’s how it would be. It rarely was. It didn’t hit me until later that this was the perfect venue for my newfound passion. 

In addition to rewriting press releases, I wrote book reviews and travel stories. Within a year, I was promoted to assistant features editor and started writing a personal column every Sunday. By then, I was covering a wider range of feature stories – entertainment, food, fashion, human interest, events around town and all kind of fun stuff. I even founded a new section on religion and did most of the reporting, writing and editing for that section.  

Yet I still didn’t realize I was a writer. In my world, I was a journalist doing my job.

It wasn’t until 1992 when I held my first book in my hands that I got it – “OH, I’m a writer!” Despite the body of work building up over the last four years with my byline on it, I had not considered myself a writer.

I spent another 16 years in the newspaper business, ending up at the “Tuscaloosa News” as features editor where I kept writing columns and stories. Although I retired from the paper in 2007, I’m still writing – some freelance here and there, this blog, content for a website on living with gusto, another book or two and tons of journal notes to self.  

And I have lots more to go, determined to get these stories out of my head before it’s too late.