was and am the youngest kid in my family. Two older sisters were my constants. A series of pets (mostly ainted turtlought
Yup, that's me. The pipsqueak on the end probably already wondering how I could fix a writer's block problem by grabbing a cookie or two.
I'm the youngest kid in my family - the only boy with two sisters who were and remain the constants in my life. We lived in a white house with a changing cast of pets (mostly little turtles bought at Woolworths that came in Chinese food boxes and died promptly upon getting home). My father worked in plastics, my mother stayed-at-home. We did typical family-stuff: watched TV - played miniature golf - drank hot chocolate after ice skating - you know, the kind of snapshot memories of a childhood that seemed pretty much okay.
I always loved to read (though not as much as my big sister Janet). My parents created a wall chart - an outline of a tree that we could add a leaf sticker to every time we finished a book. Filling the tree meant getting to buy a new book. We also had weekly outings to the tiny basement library in the elementary school down the street. I still remember sitting on the faded linoleum floor surrounded by the stories I'd get lost inside.
I think most writers have a way of looking back, seeing life not always as it was but as it felt. Details about my life surface in my work and it doesn't always matter whether something really happened or not. What matters is how those details - big, small, silly, gross - make a story come to life.
Lots of unseen stuff happens every day that will later show itself to you like an invisible ink message that slowly fades into view. So go about your day. Have a great time.....but pay attention! You never know what you'll see.
