A Blast from the Past

Everyone I've ever talked to about writing knows that it is a fairly recent passion of mine. I know that many writers cite starting young and that they always knew they were born to do it. With me, it's always been different. All I remembered was a teacher in grade school marking an assignment of mine "lacks creativity." So, I never pursued writing, or so I thought.

See, a few months ago I talked to my brother in Germany and he informed me that he found something I had written when I still lived in Germany. Since I moved to the USA at age 18, I knew it had to be quite old. To be honest, I was afraid of what it might be as I worked hard on forgetting my life there. Not just that, but I imagined my writing style to be horrible and riddled with errors because that is how I always feel when I find stuff that I wrote just a few years ago.

Plus, I was wondering if I could even read it since I haven't spoken German in a very long time. Well, my brother told me he would get the paper to me via my son who happened to be visiting Europe at the time.

It took a while to get here, but I was in no hurry because frankly, I was afraid ... Well, today the envelope arrived from my son. Among some old family pics (of me, my daughter, and second husband), were wedged four pieces of hand-written paper and one typed page (done on a typewriter of course, we are talking 1984 or so here).

I did recognize my hand writing and upon further examination, the typed page was just a repetition of the hand written text. It's definitely the beginnings of a novel and I am surprised at my use of humor and eloquent, mature use of language. What's more, I seemed quite comfortable at writing dialog; something I never quite managed to get the hang of in English and hence never seriously pursued.

This makes me wonder what else I did when I was young that I have forgotten. Like I said, most of my memories are bad, so perhaps I just buried it all in my mind. Plus, I've been homeless twice so I really have no physical items from my past. The stuff that did survive I had to leave behind with my most recent move, but of course I regret none of it. Also, I am surprised to find out that perhaps all writers did know from early on that that is what they wanted to do because apparently I was writing when I was a teenager. But why do I not remember this?

As far as this first chapter goes, it would make one heck of a novel. Alas, I can't even complete the things I start now as life on earth demands other priorities for survival. Still, I plan on translating what I have and putting it on my blog. Stay tuned ...