One day during my senior year of high school, that choir government I disapproved of decided to hold the “Potato Chip Awards,” where they gave every choir member a title and a potato chip, like it was some strange, salty carb trophy. It was weird, but my Potato Chip moment is one that is solidified in my memory.
I was scribbling in my journal as the awards were being given out. I didn’t even stop when they got to my name. And then K announced I got the “Always Writing Award.” I had to look over the top of my journal, which I did so with a smirk. Even they understood that I am, indeed, always writing.
Writing is more than just forming shapes with ink on a page. My writing has formed the map of my life, taking me through my past and present and unlocking opportunities to travel to new lands both real and imagined.
After seeing 1996’s adaptation of Harriet the Spy, I began writing in my own “spy notebook” regularly. (I’m not sure why, since, in the story, Harriet’s friends read her spy notebook and stop being friends with her because of what she’s written about them.) I had tried journaling before, but, for the most part, it stuck this time. Once I got to high school, I began writing everyday, even if it was just to say I had no time to write. Over the past 25 years, life has occasionally gotten in the way - having a full time job and a child will do that to you. But I have probably written in my journal 98% of days since I was 14. You’ve more than likely seen me do it. I am currently filling my 88th volume and have almost an equal amount of blank journals stored in a basement bin.
Why do I continue to write the minutiae of my day into these various blank books? It’s such a comfort to me in so many ways. It’s part of a nighttime routine - I sit on the couch, watch TV, and write. I would feel lost if I wasn’t forming my own words juxtaposed to the others. Writing is a part of me. I LOVE the feeling of ballpoint pen on layers of paper. That in itself is like wrapping a warm blanket around my shoulders. And rereading my own life story is a real hoot sometimes. I love knowing Lily will have volumes of me to read about someday.
But journaling is not where my writing journey began. I am an only child, which meant I had to make a lot of my own fun when I went out with my parents or their friends. I remember going to restaurants with my family and bringing a stack with me - two books to read (a spare in case I finished whatever I was in the middle of) and a pad of paper for writing stories. What did an eight year old kid have to write about? Good question. I don’t remember a lot of my ideas. There was one I worked on about two dinosaurs who were best friends. They were going to be separated by a meteor hitting Earth and have to find their way through a barren landscape back to each other.
I know. Dramatic.
As I aged, I kept writing, and a lot of plots I came up with were like that. Best friends during the Holocaust separated by Nazis. Girls who came from sad, broken homes who were put back together by manic pixie dream boys (I seriously just realized that’s what I wrote about) from sad, broken homes. I had no sad, broken reality to base this on. Just ideas that came to me.
I never finished any of these books.
Meanwhile, I struggled writing short stories in school. Not because I resisted, but because I wanted to write so much it was hard for me to turn them in on time. In sixth grade, we were asked to write a follow up story to Rudyard Kipling’s “Rikki-Tikki-Tavi.” My modest adventure ended up being 18 pages long. I was proud of myself; I wonder if my teacher dreaded grading my writing. So much to read!
In terms of writing I still have, though. There is a drawer in my childhood desk filled with the beginnings of writings - folders full of loose leaf sheets with a single paragraph on them. Notebooks with 23 pages, 2-3 chapters, of some ideas I had. They are fun to look over, to see what my writing style was like. (It wasn’t bad, not at all, even all those years ago.)
There also exists a two inch binder filled with what my friends and I lovingly referred to as “The Book,” as well as it’s 2 ½ sequels. For those of you not following along, “The Book” was a brilliant idea I had sometime around 7th grade. It starred my friends and me, though I used code names we used for ourselves after a strange incident involving prank calling our crushes. In “The Book,” the main characters spent a summer down the shore together where they met their soulmates, who just happened to share the names and looks of the Backstreet Boys.
It was fanfiction. I was writing fanfiction. Before it was widely known as such. I didn’t know it was it’s own genre; I only knew it was a ton of fun to write, allowing my friends and I to live out fantasies that would never come true. And my friends loved reading it. During the school year, I would slip a sheet of paper under my binder or a textbook and write during instruction, namely during my boring West Hem class. My friend Saman sat behind me, and I would pass her pages as I finished. In the summer, my friend Erin and I would lay on towels on our stomachs at the Elks pool. The sun would tan out backs while I scribbled out BSB adventures. Erin waited impatiently for each next page. She and Saman were excellent cheerleaders and confidence boosters. The second Book involved some baby daddy drama, and the third was about wedding planning. Stuff a 13-15 year old definitely knew a ton about.
Regardless, “The Books” hold a special place in my heart because they were the first books I finished writing. After years of starting and starting and starting, reaching a finish line was a major milestone in my writing career.
It must have been after “The Books” that journaling took over as my main writing outlet. High school was filled with drama - literally at play practice and figuratively with my many obsessive and unrequited crushes. I had to write more advanced papers about topics like Byronic heroes and author studies of poets. Staying on top of honors and AP classes while playing in marching band, singing in choir, and starring in plays was often like a full time job. When I wanted to write, I turned to OpenDiary online to blog and meet strangers interested in my paltry life. (And one of these strangers became my husband, so that’s a story I still hold onto in it’s own right! Thought it should be noted that this helped me map a second home in Great Britain.) There wasn’t as much time for the extended fantasizing of authoring novels. Things didn’t change in college, nor did they when I graduated and felt desperate to figure out my future. (Although this would have been a kick ass time to write a book.)
But writing is encoded in my DNA. (Literally - my mom is also an avid journaler and has started countless unfinished books. She’s currently on the verge of finishing a biography of her father.) I couldn’t stay away from more than journaling. While trying to piece together my job prospects, I stumbled upon a newly created news outlet entitled The Examiner (examiner.com). They were looking to employ writers who specialized in very specific topics - including American Idol. At this point in my life, time stopped on Tuesday and Wednesday nights to watch hopeful dreamers compete to be America’s next superstar singer. I already reflected on my Idol feelings in my OpenDiary, so why not get paid for it as well? I forgot what Examiner wanted me to submit as an application, but whatever it was, it impressive enough that I easily got the job.
If you could call it a job. Examiner did not pay their “employees” any kind of salary. Money made was based on the amount of views your page got. You could log in to see your traffic and how this amounted to literally pennies per day. (This was 2008; the top Examiner every day was the “Twilight” Examiner. She must have averaged about $100 a day to write about some subpar vampire stories. Good for her for seizing that moment in time.) I would have liked to have made more than $.15 a day, but it was fun regardless. I wrote at least two articles a week, recaps of the shows that I tried to get up the day after they aired.
One day, towards the end of the eighth season of American Idol, Jon and I were enjoying a cup of coffee in Metuchen’s Brewed Awakening when my phone rang with an unknown number. It was a man named Kyle who worked as a manager for Examiner extending me an unbelievable offer - a press pass to attend the season finale of American Idol! They couldn’t pay for my flight or hotel, but I could not pass up the opportunity. Jon and I flew out to LA so I could cover the event.
The experience was definitely interesting. On the first night of the finale, the one where Adam Lambert and Kris Allen performed three songs each in a final bid for the prize, I was taken to the press room, which was a small space underneath the stage. All the journalists sat at small tables and watched the competition on a TV screen half the size of the one I used at home. There were bags of chips and bottles of water at our disposal, and we all typed away, trying to publish articles quicker than the person next to us. I was sad, though, that I was viewing my favorite show on such a tiny screen while Jon was able to witness the competition live.
So for night 2, the actual finale, Jon waited in line for a ticket he graciously passed to me. In the meantime, I got to hang out on the RED CARPET. Okay, scale your expectations back a bit- I only got to stand on what I would consider the “pre-Red Carpet.” The biggest stars were in a different section. I also had to duck out before Simon, Randy, Paula, and Kara came by if I wanted to get into the show on time. But I did get to see the year’s past-Idol contestants, who seemed to be wondering what they were doing on a red carpet as much as I was. I was advised not to ask the talent for pictures as it was unprofessional, but when my favorite contestant of the season, David Hernandez, who came in 10th place came by, I couldn’t resist.
Being present in the Staples Center at an actual real live American Idol finale is one of my greatest memories. In a span of just two hours, I was able to see LEGENDS, like Queen, Cyndi Lauper, and Santana. FOR FREE. Not to mention Ryan Seacrest and the aforementioned judges, who were nearly as big a deal to Idol fans. And I got to see it in real time when Kris Allen was crowned that year’s American Idol (which, controversially, I was good with, because while I respected Adam Lambert’s unquestionable talent, I didn’t like something about his affect or tone quality).
After the big event, I hightailed it to security to pick up my cell phone and laptop, and ran down to the press room to start my longest article ever for Examiner, entitled “The Best Free Ticket in Town” (named one of Examiner's Top 10 articles that year). I got to see Adam and Kris give their official statements , all the while writing about it. Grounding the surreality of the moment in my ultimate comfort blanket.
The next year, I was invited back to the finale, but I declined. It cost a ton of money to fly out there, get a hotel, and rent a car. While Examiner had worked to drive more traffic to my page for hay week, and I did manage to snatch the top spot from Little Miss Twilight for a day or two, that only equaled about $150 per day. Had that been my always-income, we would have talked. But for three days? Unfortunately not worth it. But I often think back on those two days with a pinch-me sense of fun. Plus, is there a better way to teach non-writers how writing can open doors for you? I love telling that story to my students, to teach them that you can write about the smallest, silliest thing and have amazing experiences because of it.
All while earning about a nickel a day.
Examiner eventually went under, some time after I got tired of coming up with new ways to describe people’s copy cat pop-star performances. However, my mom had taken to printing my articles and kept them in a massive binder for me. I even brought them with me to teaching interviews to prove what a wonderful writer I am.
So yeah. I’ve kept some writing over the years.
But that’s not all, friends.
I don’t know what the year was. Maybe 2013? I just remember thinking about how absolutely terrible a lot of published, successful writers are. (I don’t want to throw shade, but you can name some horrible authors. You know you can.) I did what I now refer to as “praying to the oven gods-” I bowed my head into my folded hands on my electric stove top and asked any deity who might be listening for an amazing idea for a story. I hadn’t had one in so long, and I KNEW I could write something tremendous.
Before the next day was over, I had the idea for The Seed of Magic.
It wasn’t called that at the time. And it has gone through something like 3-5 versions at this point. And it’s been over a decade, and I’m still working on it.
But it is still very much in progress - and towards the end of the progress. It has garnered mild professional interest. (In 2019, a short story featuring the characters was published in a YA Anthology entitled “Lust” that was part of a Seven Deadly Sins series.) I’m working through its issues to the best of my abilities, but when I put it down and come back to it, I’m always surprised at how GOOD it is and how beautifully I can write certain scenes.
In terms of a story I wrote I still have, I have the original, mostly scrapped version of most of the trilogy in a binder. Google Docs houses the very messy end of the story as well as multiple versions of the first book. Some of them are neatly organized in files, while others are harder to find, buried in the years of insanity I’ve spent on this pipe dream.
But maybe someday, the dream will come true, and I won’t be the only one with a copy of my story.
And so writing continues to map my life. My past and present is covered in my journals. It led me to red carpets in California and new family in Wales. It let me imagine romance with my favorite non-husband Boys. It has helped me build a fantastical world called Vortok, filled with fairies, mermaids, knights, vampires, trolls, and a girl who just wants to find a place where she belongs.
I hope someday to welcome you all to that world, too. Follow my map and join me there.
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