When We Knew We Were Writers

Monique's typewriter JE Theriot

 

LUCY BURDETTE: Being a writer is such a huge part of my identity now. But looking back to me as a girl, even though I read a lot, I don’t think it ever occurred to me to consider becoming a writer. In eighth grade, I wrote my first short story featuring a jilted teenager. She runs to the top of a lighthouse to nurse her heartbreak, and finds Micky Dolenz, who consoles her with a kiss. (Hey, hey, we’re the Monkees…remember?) The story was rock-bottom awful and I can’t blame anyone for failing to encourage me…

I went on to become a clinical psychologist, and had a private practice for a number of years. I remember the moment when I first imagined writing. I was obsessed with learning to play golf, because the man I’d fallen for was a golfer (and is now my husband of 30 years.) We’d spent the day in New York City with family and friends. On the train back to Connecticut, I was talking to a dear friend about how difficult it was to get freelance articles related to the psychology of golf published. She asked the question “why not write a mystery?” The light switch was tripped! (This is another version of the Madeleine question we talked about Monday, isn’t it?)

How about you, Reds, when did you have the first definite inkling you’d become a writer?

HALLIE EPHRON: Oh, Lucy, I’d love to read that story. Why a lighthouse?? It’d make a terrific movie.

I was determined NOT to be a writer. See: two screenwriter parents and three successful writing sisters. I was determined to be a teacher: aka NOTAWRITER. And for many years I taught.

One turning point came when I got a call from a freelance writer who wanted to write a piece about me. Why? I asked her. Her answer: “Because you’re the only one who doesn’t write.” Nuts to that, I thought, and began working on a very personal memoir/novel which has never seen the light of day. Writing a mystery came later still.

JENN McKINLAY: I remember it clearly, my dad took my brother and me to see Romancing the Stone (post divorce, he was trying to bond), and I remember snarfing my popcorn, watching Kathleen Turner in her sweet apartment in New York, WRITING FOR A LIVING. I was a book junkie but it had never occurred to me that this was a job, like an actual paying occupation, that a person could choose. It took another six years before I started writing but once the idea took hold (could be that I really just wanted to be Kathleen Turner, but whatever) it was impossible to not picture myself as an author. I was all in!

RHYS BOWEN:  I have written all my life but it was just something I did. I didn’t think of writer as career. In fact I wanted to be a movie star and as a teenager I wrote movie scripts for me to star in. It was only when I was working in the drama department at the BBC that I found myself rewriting plays we were doing in my head. So I wrote my own, took it to the head of drama and was called into his office to say that they liked it and were going to produce it! I’ve been a professional writer ever since! 

DEBORAH CROMBIE: When I was about fourteen I started writing poetry. I was smitten with putting words on paper, with trying to get just the right image and the rhythm of the language. But I didn't really dream of being a WRITER, as a career, especially as I grew up hearing my writer uncle (journalist, novelist, poet) say that no one could make a living at it (although he did.) (Years later, he was enormously encouraging to me.) Then, when I was a couple of years shy of forty, I had an idea for a book and thought I would just give it a try. That was the first Kincaid/James, A SHARE IN DEATH. 

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: I love this question (and MIckey Dolenz),but the question is impossible to answer. I remember as a 10-year-old and thereabouts looking at books in the library and stores--libraries, mostly--and wondering about the people who wrote them.  And I remember wanting to BE Agatha Christie. But did that mean writing books? I'm not sure.  I have to say...the reality might have hit me when I read the book A CIVIL ACTION.

I thought--that's a TV story I covered, and now it's a non-fiction book that reads like a novel. Hmm. I loved In Cold Blood.  And both books seemed so reporter-centric that it nudged my brain a bit. Then one day, I just had a good idea. Boom . I know it was a good idea for a book. No further thought. Except for:  I'm doing this. ( I was 55.)

I was so naive--after 30 years of being a reporter it never crossed my mind that I couldn't do it.

(HA! Right?)

But that turned out to be Prime Time. And et cetera.

Then one day, maybe 7 years ago? I was in New York, and a person came up to me and asked "Are you Hank Philippi Ryan, the writer?"

And I stopped in my tracks.

And there was the moment to own it. "Yes," I said. 

I will never forget that. 

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: I was told I was a writer. I was going through a “what do I do with myself now?” funk when, after five years as a stay at home mom, both my kids were in school full time (Youngest was still a pipedream at that point.) I had my JD and bar membership, but I had only become a lawyer so I could afford to buy a car - and Ross had already gotten me a car, so problem solved.

One Sunday my then-priest preached on discerning God’s will. He had a definite therapy-oriented bend, because his advice was to pose your question to four people who knew you well. Hmmm. I didn’t ask Ross, because I knew what he would say - he had paid for my law degree :-) Instead, I asked my mother, my sister, my best friend from high school and my college roommate.

And my mother said, “You should be a writer.”

And my sister said, “You should be a writer.”

And my best friend from high school said, “You should be a writer.”

And my college roommate said, “You should be a writer.”

Reds, I know better than to argue with a sign like that.

Over to you Reds and Red readers. When did you figure out what you were meant to be?