My Origin Story

Welcome one and all to the Origins Blogfest. I don't know about you, but I'm eager to read everyone's story of how their writing journey began.  I want to thank Katie, Alex and Matt for helping me pull this off.  Simply click on the link above to access the list of all those participating.  My own entry is below.  Followers who have been with me a while might have seen this before, and if so you won't hurt my feelings by moving on to the next offering.  For the rest of you, I hope you like reading my rather unique story. Maybe you’ll even consider coming back on a regular basis. :)

Enjoy the blogfest! 

Up until the late-spring of 1974, I had never written a fictional story.  Oh, I used my active imagination to make up plenty of tales and in grade school I was known to organize plays for the neighborhood, but I never had an inclination to put anything down on paper.  That moment finally came when I was a junior in high school and the summer break was just over the horizon.

Our English teacher, whose name escapes me now, wanted to do something different for the end of the year.  She devised an unusual project that combined elements of writing, presentation skills, and multi-media.  The catch was that it had to be worked on in teams of four.  As she broke us down and announced the groupings it was clear to me that some in-decipherable logic was used to select who wound up in what pod.  When I heard the other names in my group I suddenly broke out in a cold sweat. 

One boy was a longtime friend, another I vaguely knew, but the final name was the one that continued ringing in my ears.  Vicki M.  Everybody knew Vicki.  She was a cheerleader, but not just any cheerleader.  She was the prettiest, friendliest, most popular girl in school, who was also blessed with intimidating intelligence.  I had never spoken a word to her, not even to bless a sneeze. I was quite certain that if she said anything to me, all of my clothes would suddenly disappear and there would be no recovering from the depth of my nakedness. 

I was still getting over the shock of hearing her name in the same breath as my own when we received our assignment.  Each team was to create a ten-minute audio recording in the style of an old time broadcast serial such as Dick Tracy or Little Orphan Annie, during the golden years of radio. The kicker…the material used for the show also had to be from an original idea, meaning the groups had to write their own scripts. 

The teacher let us devote the last thirty minutes of class to our projects, so the class shuffled chairs around to form team circles.  Vicki quickly took charge and asked if anybody had ideas about a story, but I had already vanished into her hypnotic blue eyes.  I think everyone half-expected straight-A Vicki to come up with a story, but she bashfully admitted to being better with numbers and facts, then fiction.  Seeing an opportunity, I hastily volunteered to write the entire script.  A bold move, certainly, especially considering up until then I had never written a story of any sort.  But this was something I felt I could do, and it would be a surefire way to impress Vicki. Somebody else came up with the idea of doing a radio spot along the lines of a Thriller Theater and that’s when everyone turned to me.  Could I come up with story along those lines by the next day?  “No problem,” I said, my sphincter now clamped so tight I couldn’t pass a microbe.  What had I done?

That night I barricaded myself in my room with a legal pad, pen, a tall glass of milk and stack of Oreo’s.  I was motivated by two forces, a deep desire to impress Vicki and become a blip on her radar, and a bone-chilling fear of failure. Surprisingly, the words started to flow almost immediately.  I wrote a simple story involving a family who purchases an antique floor-standing mirror and the strange things that happen when their small son starts playing with a mysterious friend he finds in the mirror.

I read the story to the team the next day.  Everyone, especially Vicki, LOVED it.  We then set about the task of recording the episode.  There were acting roles to be assigned (Vicki was the mother), proper background music to choose, and figuring out how to create the different sound effects.  The entire project took two weeks to finish, most of the time working at my house because I lived closest to school.  Having Vicki in my home every day was magical! My mom’s house the plants seemed to bloom brighter and the snacks she laid out for us never tasted so sweet.

Then the day came when all the teams were to present their project.  By luck of the draw, our tape was scheduled to play last.  One by one we listened to each group’s tapes and I have to say the talent on display was truly impressive.  Then it came our turn.  While our tape played I stared down at my desk top, unable to look at my classmates faces, worried that my story wouldn’t be as well received as it’d been with my team. 

Our tape garnered the loudest applause of the day and Vicki gave each of us a genuine hug.  I still remember that embrace and the way it made me feel.

Our euphoria ended abruptly when the teacher called us aside and demanded we tell her where we got the story we used, upset that we had not used original material as she instructed. When we finally convinced her that I had written the story myself, she was so impressed that she urged me to submit the story to several writing contests. Weeks later she was still pushing me to enter the story somewhere, but I never followed through with her suggestions.  I preferred to stay out of the spotlight, content with the only reward that mattered.  The admiration of Vicky M.

After that I couldn’t stop writing.  I had finally found something I was really good at and others…mostly adults…took notice of.  I ended up working for the school newspaper my senior year, but after high school my creative writing took a back seat to life.  College, a career, a wife and three kids all ganged up on me and successfully forced my urge to write into an extended hibernation.  But now it’s awake again…with a vengeance!

The last time I saw Vick M was at graduation, but to this day I still carry the original copy of that script in my backpack.  It now serves as a reminder of a simpler life, the birth of a passion, and the existence of undiscovered possibilities.