It’s Never Too Late To Become a Writer

All it takes is a little encouragement!

I’ve always wanted to be a writer.

As a child, I would write short poems or stories. In college, I wrote the most angst-driven, whiny poetry. I found reams of it in a box when I was in my late twenties. Horrified, I threw it away. I’m a little regretful of my hasty actions. Now that I am in my sixties, it would be interesting to see what I was thinking back then. That poetry, flawed though it was, served a purpose in my life. It was a way of expressing myself when I had no other way to be expressive. It was also documentation of my life. I was living away from home for the first time. I was learning to get along with roommates and even had someone who I thought was the love of my life reject me. I’m sure that I would cringe to read those poems now, but I know going through the emotions and experiences in those days is still a part of the person I have become. Now that I have all of this wisdom, I wish I could go back in time and tell the girl who wrote those poems not to worry. It will all work out in the end.

After college, life became busy.

I married and divorced. I began teaching, and everyone knows how busy a teacher is. I didn’t think much about writing. Eventually, I married again and adopted a couple of kids. I expressed myself in those years through photography. I documented my life visually instead of through the written word.

There was one occasion during that era of my life when I do remember showing a friend a story that I was in the process of writing. I was excited to show it to her.

To my surprise, she got out her imaginary red pen and began to show me all of my grammatical errors.

Hurt, I took back my story and never showed her anything again. In fact, I don’t think I showed anyone my work again for a couple of decades. I never had much confidence in myself to start with, and now I was afraid if I did my feelings would be hurt once again. When someone criticizes your work, the feeling it evokes is very similar to having your child criticized. Criticism of your babies makes you angry, hurt, and sad at the same time. My stories are almost as precious to me as my babies.

I credit a close friend with planting the writing seed in my heart again. She was tired of me talking about how I wanted to write.

She basically said, “pee or get off the pot.” So I did. I wrote an entire children’s book.

Then I punished her by making her read it. She did. She didn’t say much except that it was too long for a children’s book. It was. I wrote another book. Once again, I made her read it. She didn’t hate it. I don’t think that she loved it either, but, hey, she didn’t get out her imaginary red pen and slice up my heart. I have much gratitude for this friend. All it took was a word of kind encouragement to get me started.

I spent the last seven years of my education career working in the school library reading books during storytime and encouraging children to read. I couldn’t even call it work. It was the best time of my education career. I still miss it. Working as a Media Specialist brought me an unexpected bonus.

Every time I read a book to the children, it would trigger a memory.

Then I would tell them a story from my childhood days. I told of visiting my grandmother on her farm or growing up with my siblings. I called these stories “Bad Little Mrs. Berry” stories. The kids loved them. Imagine a generation of children who had never heard of an outhouse or couldn’t imagine someone leaving their house unlocked and open for the neighbors? They learned about hunting for chicken eggs and trying to pet piglets. I left out the part about how fried chicken came to be. It was traumatic for me, and I didn’t want to pass that on to a new generation.

When I retired, a teacher friend gave me a journal as a gift and told me to write my Bad Little Miss Berry stories down.

This teacher had heard my stories over and over again during the weekly storytime. It was a small gift, but it represented another form of encouragement. Someone who was not related to me thought that I had some talent. My heart was filled with happiness.

After retirement, I began writing a young adult novel.

I was making good progress until my children were home for the summer. My writing time was put on the back burner, and I let the novel sit. I didn’t forget about it, though, and I had every intention of getting back to it.

Eventually, I was made aware of a company called Storyworth.

It’s a subscription memoir company. They send you a question to write about every week. You post your story, and at the end of a year, they send you a book. I hesitated, but then the friend showed me the book that her husband had written. It was very professional-looking, and I was impressed. I signed up and began my journey. I wrote stories about myself, my children, my parents, my grandparents. I dug out old pictures and put them with the stories. I had fun. When I wasn’t writing stories I was thinking about writing stories.

I shared my new hobby with my sister, and she was interested as well.

I gifted her a subscription to Storyworth, and we began a year of sharing family stories back and forth. I learned so much about her and things that I didn’t know about my parents and other family members. Writing brought a new closeness with my sister. We both finished the project and gave our books away as gifts at Christmas.

I want to say that my two boys loved my memoir but I would be lying.

One of them asked me if it was on Audible!

I don’t know how a librarian reared two non-readers, but there you go. One day after I’m gone, they may want to get out my little book of stories and read about themselves as a child. I would certainly have loved such a gift from my parents.

Writing the memoir triggered more ideas in my head.

I finished my young adult novel. Then I wrote another book that could best be described as humorous women’s fiction. It is for sale on Amazon as The Marriage Wars by Leeanne Beasley Berry. I had a good time writing it and got rid of some old middle school demons in the process. Who knew that the ultimate junior high “mean” girl would become a character in my book? If I ever see her again, I know that I will be able to smile to myself as I remember her fate in my book.

Writing has now become my “thing.”

I wake up and think of things I want to put on paper. I put off going to bed because I’m writing. I don’t need to set a time to write because I am always stopping by my computer to add a thought to one of my stories. It is the cheapest therapy there is. I use writing as a form of expression and I am free to write about my feelings, my thoughts, and whatever has struck me funny. I am reminded of my college days but I think my writing might have improved just a tad bit since then.

These days I have many ideas in my head that are spinning around waiting to get out.

The same friend who originally encouraged me is still my biggest fan. We meet once a week and she patiently listens to my latest accomplishments. She is the first that I send my latest published article to. I couldn’t ask for a better fan. Does writing every day make me a writer? I hope so! Because, you know, it’s what I always wanted to do. All it took was a little encouragement.