Thankful I followed the signs by Paty Jager

 I can't think of anything else I do that gives me fulfillment like writing does.

There were so many little things I did growing up that should have shown me my path, but I didn't see them until I was an adult. 

In grade school my younger brother and I would use stuffed animals like puppets. We'd put on plays for the family either using picture books we'd read from or later following scripts I wrote. 

I loved and still love reading. There is nothing that can transcend time or take you to another place like reading. Once I dive into a book, I become immersed in the characters, setting, and plot. I spent many hours finding the right book at the school and county library. Then even more hours devouring the books from front cover to back. Books were how I learned about the world. I loved ones set in exotic places and ones set in cities. Places I only saw on television. We lived rural and I hungered to know more about the world.

Art, drawing and painting, were my creative outlets. I ordered the learn to draw kit and was told I was good. They probably tell everyone that, but I was excited. In middle school my plan was to go to art school and work in a big city.

In Junior High I drew a small cartoon book with funny sayings and had fun showing it to family and friends. I was having thoughts of trying to get it published when my dad told me that I wouldn't make money as an artist and insisted I go into the medical field. 

I continued to devour books and loved history. I can't remember if it was my freshman year of high school or it was Junior High, in English we were asked to write a story about our life in, I can't remember if it was 10  or 20 years. My story had me as a writer, living in a renovated barn on the Oregon Coast with a tiger for a pet. At the time I didn't realize how close I had come to what I would be doing in 20 years. 

My senior year of high school, our English teacher gave us an  assignment to write a moment in the life of someone from history. I don't know how I came to write about Joan of Arc, but I researched books and encyclopedias about her. The moment in time I picked was when she was being burned at the stake. The story was from her point of view. I wish I had that story. I do have the memory of the teacher reading my story to the class and the silence when she finished reading. Not even the class clown said or did anything. That was the day, I realized how powerful words could be. 

On to college, I attended a technical school to be an x-ray technician. Things didn't work out and the last term of my first year, I took a writing class. It was eye-opening. Especially when I asked the instructor why my papers always came back with more editing than the others. Which I had read and thought could have been improved upon. He said, "Because you show potential." That comment and his actions stuck with me.

Flash forward seven years. When our oldest daughter attended kindergarten, I would go in and help once a week, with the other two younger children in tow. At the time, the teacher was teaching about zero and how he was a hero because he could change other numbers. I went home and wrote a story about Zero the Hero. I polished it up and presented it to the teacher to read to the kids the following week. She loved it and wanted a copy. Then my husband suggested I make it into a book. I tried several publishing houses, but no one was interested. So you could say I started self-publishing in 1987. ;) I drew pictures and added the words to a book I put together and took to the local print shop and had a hundred books printed. I sold copies to the kindergarten teachers that our teacher had told about the book, but it barely covered the costs I'd put into the books. However, I was published. 

I started taking community ed writing classes. One of the instructors said believe in yourself. I did and ended up getting a freelance job for the local newspaper. 

Then I started working on a novel. I didn't have a computer or know how to use one. I helped out in the new computer room at the grade school learning along with the kids I'd help in my children's computer classes. The teacher was open to my writing and would let me go in early with a floppy disk I'd purchased and transcribe the book I had written on a typewriter onto the floppy disk. 

Eventually, I used money I inherited to purchase my first computer. I loved that thing! No more whiteout and having to rewrite a whole chapter to change one word or sentence. I was very thankful for the home computer! 

But I have to say the thing I am most thankful for is my husband! He encouraged my community ed classes and my writing. In fact, when I wouldn't write for a few days, I'd become grumpy and he would tell me to drop everything and go write. "It's your happy place," he'd say.

And it is. I enjoy the research, meeting new people, and creating stories that people want to read. I hope they learn something new with each story, and, if I did my job, I take them on a journey.

Is there something you love that you are thankful for? 

Paty Jager is an award-winning author of 51 novels, 8 novellas, and numerous anthologies of murder mystery and western romance. All her work has Western or Native American elements in them along with hints of humor and engaging characters. Paty and her husband raise alfalfa hay in rural eastern Oregon. Riding horses and battling rattlesnakes, she not only writes the western lifestyle, she lives it. 

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Photo source: Paty Jager