The writing process for me has been a lifelong journey of tremendous joy and profound frustration. To begin, I inherited my love of storytelling from my father who as somewhat of a griot (oral historian). Though my father could barely read or write, he often entertained his children with colorful tales of his ancestors and local history. A hard day in the fields did not diminish my Papa’s storytelling ability. His face would light up and his tired eyes became bright with mirth and mischief as he told his funny, wonderful tales. My grandfather who was half Chippewa, was an evangelist who loved to weave such colorful imagery in his sermons. Long after his passing in 1958, the elderly people of our community loved reminiscing about how he was the greatest preacher that they had ever heard preach. Therefore, storytelling is in my blood.
The writing process for me has given me tremendous joy. I wrote my first short story at the age of eight. My Fourth Grade language teacher assigned writing a short story about something funny that had happened at school. My short story was entitled: Two Shoes, One Sock. I wrote a funny little tale about the day I overslept, and in my haste not to miss the school bus, I had put on only one sock. My little story had my fellow classmates and the teacher howling with laughter. And when they asked me had the incident truly happened to me, I told them truthfully no. I had made the story up. My teacher and my classmates were amazed and began to applaud. For the first time in my life, I felt special and for a while I didn’t feel like such a misfit.
In high school I wrote screenplay in English II, and my teacher created a special program whereby my classmates could act out my play on stage for the entire school. After that, I actually had an opportunity to be popular in school. However, I wasn’t about to let that happen. Popularity would mean that I couldn’t read books all the time or weave whimsical tales about school life and church life.
As a young adult, I was always writing but never finishing anything. This was very frustrating. I blamed it on the demanding life of wife, mother and college student. But that was not the reason. I couldn’t finish anything because I was not organized. After my divorce, I was determined to write my first novel. I started studying the mechanics of writing. I studied what the authors of bestsellers advised. They all agreed, I had to first outline my book. I tried but failed. It felt as if outlining stifled my creativity.
Not until I wrote my Master of Arts thesis, did I master the art of writing an outline. An outline was a graded component of the Thesis process. I had no choice but to write an outline. That successful work—Callin’ the Children Home: The History of Jazz Music in New Orleans 1895-1995— convinced me that I could use outlines to finish novels!
