My Journey To Writing (and imagination.)

      When I was little my parents didn’t lavish us with excess toys and games much to my chagrin at the time. It wasn’t that we were poor or that they were mean. Certainly we had some dolls and always had a bike. They just didn’t buy us the extras that many of my friends and cousins had like a box full of Barbie dolls and doll houses with furniture etc. The one thing though, that my mom never held back on buying me was books.

      I remember her taking me to the book store many times and telling me that I could buy however many I wanted and that when I was finished with them, she would take me to buy more. It was so exciting to me. I would bring them home like it was Christmas day, eager to get into my precious presents. Fanning the pages of the freshly bound paper in front of my face, I delved in. My favourite kind of books to read were fiction that would transport me to other worlds- a place where things happened that were truly magical and outside of anything that could happen on our earthly planet. I would strain my eyes in the dim nightlight, long after I should be sleeping, sneaking in every word.

      Many times playing with my friends, I remember being the one to make up alternate worlds that were surrounding us and pointing out where such things were and how we could be granted access there. I’ve always had quite the imagination. My cousin had a cabin in the country and she and I would make the woods our own and name parts of it, as though we were native to it. There was a small water fall about an hour’s trek through the woods where we would often picnic. Recently I finished writing a children's fantasy novel. Those woods were a big inspiration and those unforgettable falls play a starring role. 

       My novel is being edited right now, and I'm hoping one day it will be published. I am on that journey now and will be soon sending out the much exasperating query letter. 

  So the question is, how much imagination is innate and how much of it is fostered?  I think I always had a big imagination but by my mother encouraging me to read with her lavish book buying, I believe it allowed my imagination to grow as a seed or a flower that you nurture. So, I thank my mother for that and always will, no matter where my journey may take me.

        I would love to hear your stories on how you started writing-what nurtured it in you? Why you felt the need or desire to write?