From Reader to Writer: My Journey into Storytelling

I have been a reader my entire life. Not a casual reader — a voracious one. I have no idea how many books I've read. Thousands. Probably more. Physical books first, stacked under my bed, in boxes, on every available surface, until we cleared them out and donated them. Then we did it again. And again. Libraries, used bookstores, donation bins. My husband was very patient about this.

When I finally switched to digital he was genuinely relieved. Less space. Same amount of reading. Everyone won.

What I was doing while I read, though, was more than just reading. I was always writing stories in my head that carried on past where the author stopped. I'd fill in gaps, invent backstories, continue adventures. I always felt like I had a voice. I just never tried to use it, because life happens — technology was limited, time was limited, and I was working too hard to do much about it.

There was also fear. But my fear wasn't what you might expect. It wasn't what if I can't get it published. It was what if I do. That's a different kind of scary and it kept that original story tucked away in the back of my head for a long time.

When I got close to retirement I started bringing it back out. And then the world I'd been carrying around showed up fully formed one day and demanded to be written down, which is its own story. But getting all of those voices out of your head and onto a page — or a screen, or whatever — is harder than it sounds when you've been a consumer your whole life and not a supplier.

That's the real transition. Not from physical books to digital. Not from working to retired. It's from consuming to producing. I went from reading voraciously to spewing material voraciously, which if you've spent any time reading these blog posts you may have noticed.

I think for a long time I was stifling a part of my personality. The part that had things to say and stories to tell and wasn't just going to sit quietly and read someone else's. It took a while to let that part out. But here we are. 🐉