I stood at the kitchen sink, washing dishes, and stared at a wall. The brownish red of the brick and dirt that covered my backyard created the backdrop of a wasteland, the occasional tumbleweed or dry grass breaking up the soil. Over the years, I stared at other backyards or back-splashes day after day. Vacuuming, mopping, pulling weeds, folding clothes, I only vaguely saw it all through the fantasy worlds playing out in my imagination.
Snow White sang, but my voice scares away the animals (including my children). So the only way I survived being a full-time mother of three was escaping into the worlds I created in my head.
I loved my kids more than I can express with words, and they’re brilliant and funny and wonderful. But spending 24/7 with children and cleaning and gardening and cleaning some more–it’s not a recipe for intrigue. And that’s what I craved. I wanted to travel the world, taste foods I’d never heard of, see animals outside a zoo with amazing abilities too strange to imagine, learn about ancient cultures from their ruins.
But diapers had to be changed. The little people needed read to and taught and bathed and occasionally rescued from one another.
So I told myself stories and created worlds of my own that were every bit as fascinating to me as the real world I couldn’t get to. And that’s how I became a writer.
How did you become a writer? I’d love to hear your story!