A Different Drummer by Lynn Lovegreen

(Note: this was previously posted on www.lynnlovegreen.com.)

I was the nice, quiet kid who read a lot. I had friends and could be social when I was in the mood or circumstances called for it, but I was a bit weird. One of my favorite things to do was find a quiet place in the woods and tell myself fairy stories. While other kids played sports, I curled up with a book or listened to Beatles records with my oldest sister. (For those of you who missed out on records, the best part was the LP covers. They were huge canvases for art and often had the lyrics inside or on the back, so we could follow along and analyze them in a way that’s hard to do with downloaded songs on our phones.) 

In high school, I had requisite crushes on cute guys, but I also had a thing for Elizabethan playwright Christopher Marlowe and Romantic poet John Keats. I was a drama geek who memorized the soundtrack of A Chorus Line years before I ever saw it. I listened to music in my room for hours. The Beatles were still sacred to me, but I also learned lyrics by Billy Joel, Elton John, and others. Starting to notice a pattern here—words and stories?

It was no surprise to anyone that I became an English teacher. I loved reading and writing with teenagers. And sometimes they did, too. There’s nothing more rewarding than giving a teen a book and watching them fall in love with it. And a class NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) project led to writing my first novel and a new passion connected to words.

Skip a few years, and here I am, writing young adult historical fiction set in my home state. I hope to inspire and entertain teens (and those who love them) with stories of old Alaska. I am still marching to a different drummer, as there are few of us in this particular niche. But I couldn’t be happier about my current calling. It feels right for me, and gives me joy. Whether it’s researching, writing, connecting with other writers, or hanging out with teens, teachers, and librarians, it’s all fun, interesting or both at the same time. 

How are you stepping to the music of a different drummer? What are the rewards you’ve found in doing that?

Lynn Lovegreen has lived in Alaska for over fifty years. After twenty years in the classroom, she retired to make more time for writing. She enjoys her friends and family, reading, and volunteering at her local library. Her young adult historical fiction is set in Alaska, a great place for drama, romance, and independent characters. See her website at www.lynnlovegreen.com. You can also find her on Facebook and Instagram.

Honoring Our Eighth by Remembering Age Eight

By Robin Weaver

Eight-million congrats to the Genre-ists on our "Eighth Anniversary!!"  A special thanks to Judith
and Sarah for inviting me to be a part of this awesome group.

Time really does fly.  In honor of our eighth, I'm re-posting one of my previous blogs about when "I was eight (or close enough)."  Hope you enjoy.

Near-Death After School Program

I grew up in the middle of nowhere, and since my parents worked long hours and had a lengthy commute, my non-school time involved very little supervision. In those days (and it really wasn’t that long ago), leaving eight- and ten-year-old children alone during the time between school bus drop-off and arrival of the parents after a day at the factory didn’t constitute child-neglect. My eight-year-old brother had a more structured existence.  He was supervised by ten-year-old me. Translation: it’s amazing we survived childhood. 

What could possibly happen in those three hours each day? We had chores to keep us busy, right?

Here’s what we actually did…

• Had races. On real horses. At full gallop, through the woods.
• Had tin can fights. Did I mention we loaded the cans with rocks because the weight made the throw more accurate?
• Went swimming in the lake. Said-lake had been created from a gravel pit, and thus had a very deep drop-off.
• Went fishing in the beaver pond. Several water moccasins enjoyed the same water.
• Had contests to see who could climb the highest tree. And jump down.
• Played circus knife-thrower. You guessed it—with the kitchen butcher knife.
• Tried to create fire by rubbing stones together. Fortunately for the hundred-acre forest, we never succeeded.
• Had target practice with B-B guns. Enough said.
• Played Zorro. Sword fights involved sticks sharpened with the circus-play butcher knife.
• Tested bed sheets to determine if they could be used as parachutes. Testing involved jumping from the roof. Note: Bed sheets do not make good parachutes.
• Drove the tractor to the neighbor’s house (in first gear the entire trip). Note: The neighbor gave us a lecture but never ratted us out. I don’t think the tractor ever ran the same.
• Made up stories. Probably the only safe thing we did. At least until we turned the stories into live-action plays.

Did my mom know about our activities? Of course not. She would have killed us.

My childhood didn’t seem like a near-death experience at the time, but a few years later, I freaked because my five-year-old daughter went roller skating without a helmet. I guess times really have changed. J

You might also enjoy what happens to thirty-eight & forty-eight year olds who try to date after divorce, loss, and bra fat.  Take a peek at The Boy Box.

Mom, Grandma, and Jane Austen

by Christy Carlyle

Strong women? Women who've influenced me? So many spring to mind, from my personal life, from history, and from the literary pantheon. But if I'm honest, there are three that stand out and impact who I am, what I love, and how I live my life more than any others.

Grandma

My grandmother, Phyllis, took care of me when I was little while my mother, Linda, worked. Those two women, one who worked inside the home and one who worked outside of it, are an integral part of who I am today. I still struggle to balance those two identities within myself, with a deep yearning to be a homemaker and a real necessity to be a wage earner. Despite all their other responsibilities, my mom and grandma taught me, loved me, and prepared me for how I should interact with the world.

My grandmother gave me one of the greatest gifts of all. She taught me the alphabet and helped me learn to read. Later, she indulged my love of books and bought them for me regularly. My mother also encouraged my love of reading and let me fill our house with more books than anyone believed I would ever be able to read. Okay, there might still be a few back in Indiana that I have yet to read from cover to cover.

Mom wrote stories. She wrote them out in a steno notebook, but she never made any fuss about them or mentioned a desire to be published. Still, I can’t help thinking that seeing her write had something to do with the young girl I became, a child who spent an inordinate amount of time banging out stories on her mother’s green Hermes typewriter.

Somewhere amidst typed up stories and reading my way through the pile of books I’d found at the library or Goodwill, I came across Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. I was in my early teens. I wanted to be Elizabeth Bennet and I wanted her to fall in love with Mr. Darcy. While reading his first proposal scene, I remember feeling a burning in my chest, as if my own heart was breaking rather than his. That was the moment I knew I had to become a romance writer.

Later, in studying all of Austen’s works and her life, I came to admire the woman as much as her writing. She was a diligent writer who believed in her work. She made sacrifices for her writing; some might say too many. She was a brilliant writer who has taught me more about characterization than any craft book I have ever read. And most importantly, her stories always have a happy ending.

If my writing life and my personal life have a happy ending, I know it will be because of the choices I make and the work I do. However, there are three women who influence those choices and my drive to tell stories. My gratitude goes to Mom, Grandma, and Jane Austen.

Who taught you to read or to write? Did they influence you to become a book lover or a writer?