Introduction

I’m a 30-something year old woman living with my boyfriend and cat on the west coast of Canada. Writing use to be a passion of mine. It started when my parents bought me Storybook Weaver, which turned me into the only excited kid in my Jr. High class when the Language Arts teacher announced our creative writing assignment. In high school I was gifted my first lap top computer and my writing grew into longer and longer forms. I remember hammering out shitty and weird stories in bed until two in the morning, or until my mother would yell from upstairs for me to go to bed. Then I was on my own and could type away until as late as I wanted. My passion for writing moved me from Alberta to the West Coast to obtain a BA in the subject. Unfortunately adult life, working a job in the publishing industry, and crippling self-doubt paired with an over-active self-editing brain sucked most of the creativity out of me and I haven’t written on a regular basis for a long time.

The boyfriend (inklessej ), who is a longtime Dreamwidth user, talked me into writing here. While short fiction is my jam, I hope to use this place as an outlet for me to write about anything that I want. Since this is literally the second paragraph I have written for my journal, I’m not exactly sure what kind of content I’ll create.

I don’t think my life is particularly interesting but I do think everyone has a story tell or a perspective that deserves to be shared. My brain sometimes feels like tangled ball of yarn, and I hope that writing out my thoughts will help untangle those strands into something that’s comprehensible. If not, I also look forward to reading the thoughts that others decide to share.

 

 

First Official Post

I’ve been struggling to think of something to write as a first post, so I’ve decided to get my toes wet and answer a question from 365 meme. I doubt I’ll stay consistent and answer this every day, but inklessej  suggested it would at least spoon feed me something to write about today.

What’s the first book you remember reading?

I’ve got two answers for this question: the first book I remember reading...and the first novel that I read from front to back on my own.

The first book that’s burned in my memory is Love you Forever by Robert Munsch. A lot of the books I remember from childhood are by Robert Munsch, but this one I remember the most because it’s the one book my mother couldn’t read from front to back without crying.

The book tells the story of a mother and son relationship as the son grows from a baby into an adult man. The song, “I'll love you forever, I'll like you for always, as long as I'm living my baby you'll be” repeats throughout the book, regardless of the shenanigans the little boy gets into. The shift in the story, and when my mother’s tears usually started and she would either have to stop or my older sister would have to take over and finish reading, was when the roles reversed and the adult son started to take care of his aging and dying mother.

To be honest, I can’t remember what was actually the first novel I read. Technically, I think it might have been Owls in the Family by Farley Mowat, but I’m not going to count that one because I read it for school. One that does stick out in my memory Tomorrow, When the War Began by John Marsden. It’s the first of a “young adult invasion” series originally published in 1993. The series is about a group of Australian teenagers who go camping and come back to discover that their city has been invaded by a foreign power. They go back to their camping ground and decide to fight back using guerrilla tactics.

It’s been so long since I’ve read the book that I don’t remember how much literary merit the story has but I do remember how much the story sucked me in. I couldn’t put the book down and when I finished I made my mom take me to the public library so I could rent the next in the series. And the next. And the next if there was one.

I remember it was the first time I read about sex in a book. There’s a romantic side plot of the protagonist losing her virginity and trying to maintain a relationship with one of her friends while they struggled to survive. I remember a lot of action. The teens use weapons and aggressive force to fight back. The first book of the series has the most action, but later in the series the situation the characters are in starts to take a toll of them and I remember how the author showed each character’s complexities to how they react to what is asked of them. Some rise to the occasion. Others can’t take it and freeze up.

I don’t think I ever finished the series. According to the internet there’s six books in total and a movie version was released in 2010. Now that I’ve got more time on my hands, maybe I’ll look that movie up.