Writers read a lot of books, that's what we are often encouraged to do in order to recognize and find our own voice. I have just finished reading Write from the Heart: Unleashing the Power of Your Creativity. In this valuable book, Hal Zina Bennett provides several exercises to help you reach back to your earlier writing memories.

Here are a few lines I've written about my first memory of being an "author".

The first story I remember writing was one giant version of plagiarism! I believe I was probably about 7 or 8 years old. I don’t remember ever reading the REAL Winnie the Pooh but somehow I obviously felt that I could improve it.

I was that brave back then. My main character was a girl of course, just like me. Her name was Jennifer Parker.

There were enough elements of the story that anyone who had read the REAL Winnie the Pooh, would have had sufficient chuckles to know the attempted storylines of this 7 or 8-year-old. There was sweetness and turmoil, friendship that included hugging and something about paint in my story. Perhaps I had also been reading something about Picasso?

That little story, written in cursive (which all slanted to the right as dictated in those days) sits in a scribbler with blue lines somewhere in a box of my childhood memories. A small box, because I was not encouraged to be a memory keeper, a holder of emotions.

And yet the feelings that start in my eyes, then reach my heart make their way quickly to my head and then reverse route out of my fingertips continues to live on.


Writer feelings - from eyes to fingertips. (Tweet This)


What is the first memory you have of writing? (Tweet This)