The year was 1973 with winter fresh upon us. Although the U.S. had pulled out of Vietnam, the war continued and P.O.W.s and M.I.A.s were still very much in my thoughts. I was a stay-at-home mom to two girls under the age of five. I had recently purchased a Sears electric typewriter. Believe me, it was one rickety clackity little machine.
I remember snow falling outside my dining room windows as I sat at the table, that noisy, clackity, humming machine that wobbled when I touched it sitting in front of me. I began to write a story about a young mom whose husband was serving in Vietnam. I made it either 7 or 9 pages, single spaced, before I set it aside. Years later, I ran across those pages, and they were bad!
To be honest, when I sat down to write, I didn’t think *I want to write a short story or a novel* or *I want to be published*. I was just playing at storytelling. I never thought about being a writer, as I said before. I simply wrote for the fun of it, because I wanted to. Had to, maybe.
Over the next 7+ years, my writing remained journals and letters. My sister-in-law used to pass around my letters to neighbors because she thought they were so entertaining. I found that weird. Why would perfect strangers want to read something I wrote? My s-i-l, yes. She was family. But her neighbors? Didn’t make sense to me. But I guess they were my trial run.
Next entry: We’ll jump to 1980.
