New Year ... Writing for Fun!

I have been a "writer" since I was 13 years old.  I have loved photography for about the same amount of time.  I can remember the moments when both clicked for me.... 

First.... because I'm starting about the beginning of becoming me, I have to tell a story that goes a little further back...  I remember when I was in 5th Grade, we were doing spelling tests... I failed.  I spelled everything phonetically and we all know, that doesn't work in English language.  What with it's stupid rules and weird multi-spellings.  I remember my 5th grade teacher put my test on my desk, and I had failed it.  She looked at me and goes "You have to learn to spell" and I remember looking up at her and saying to her ... "What?  It's not like I'm going to be a writer or anything" .... 

Yeah...  jokes on me!  Needless to say - I have learned to spell but I still have my moments.  I also have my grammar police moments.

So ..... when I was 13 my mom would make trips to Superior, WI.  We'd go up there for the day because she had meetings up there, I don't remember what they were, but they were at the Day's Inn (which is funny, because that was also our last name....  Day.)  Well - just a few blocks from the hotel was this mansion.  My best friend would come with us to keep me company, and we'd walk around this little area of Superior.  Well this day Cat and I had decided to go walk down to the mansion and see what we could see, because it was open to the public as a museum.  It was a self guided tour and so we paid and started to explore the three floors. 

photos borrowed from Google

I remember as we toured the house...  we came to the "nursery" and I sat down on the floor.  I just sat there, I'm not even sure how long I sat there.  But I sat and sat and thought and thought and suddenly this plot was rolling around in my head.  And I spent the whole rest of the day, on the way home, all of it ... with my head rolling and my hand writing in a notebook.  It was then, in that moment, on that day, when I was 13 years old, that I became a writer and McCrady Manor was born.  It took me a long time to get the first chapter right....  I kept starting and restarting and I was never happy.  I wrote a book called Death Wish ... and my best friend Cat and I wrote a book called Masks during the years of high school ... but McCrady Manor has always been my baby, my biggest project and the one that I have to get absolutely right.  It's a series, and I always said I would seek getting published after the 2nd book was finished.  I know that a beginning of the story didn't stick until after I was in my 20's and Calahan was born.  Here I am in my 40's and book two is half finish and sitting on my shelf, never that far in case I find inspiration again ... I think part of me never wants to finish it because it's the end of it .... 

...... or I may not finish it because I've never been good and sitting down and writing - I have to wait for the brilliance of it ..... 

........... unless it's blogging, that I can do .... 

This is one of my photos, how it looked a blistery early winter morning.... the grass was frosty and so was I ... This house holds a very special place in my heart.  Always has, always will ...  

I'll chat about the house and history in another blog...  because this is where it's at for me.  

It's where it all started.  

As for the photography, which this blog is TOTALLY not even about but I'll share anyway ... 

It was a day I was probably 14 or 15 ....  I had taken my 35mm camera with me on a walk to the gas station from the apartment my mom and I lived in ...  and from behind the gas station I saw the sun setting and I took this picture.... 

And when I got it developed, I thought...... WOW .... that is really cool.   

And I started taking my camera with me ........... everywhere ...  

Anyway - I am hoping to become more structured in my writing now, so I'm going to ATTEMPT to do writing prompts and have some fun in 2018.  My kids are independent now and I don't have to be hyper aware, they are all in school and I don't have to chase tiny feet all over ...  so I'm going to start doing what I want .... NEED ... to do ... and write.