On Why I Write -Julie

I am the daughter of two extraordinarily mid-western people. Nicest people you’d ever want to meet, and unassuming? Hoo Boy! I was raised in a quiet house, where we did not toot our own horns, or anyone else's horn, and we mostly tried to find ways to not call attention to ourselves. I was once overlooked, gift-wise, when Santa came to my preschool. I waited until after Christmas to tell Mom. Sometimes I wondered if perhaps we were in the Witness Protection Program.

So I went to school, did my work, did not get in trouble, did not do much of anything in fact, and my 2nd grade teacher called in my parents to voice concern about my shyness. Yes, that’s how you help a shy girl, tell her you’re worried about how shy she is.

Then in 4th grade I wrote a story inspired by a science fiction book I had read. The story was really good. And long. And the teacher called my parents to say that she thought I was a good writer.

In high school I wrote a memoir about visiting my grandma in Nebraska in the summer and spending nights on her sleeping porch with the scent of lilacs drifting up from the yard. It was published in an anthology of student work designed for teachers of writing (published by Boynton/Cook Publishers, look it up if you don’t believe me).

In college I wrote a little dialogue between Plato and Socrates that had my stodgy old Rhetoric professor giggling.

Six years ago in a continuing education writing class I wrote some vignettes about a particularly pathetic year I spent in Portland as a twenty-two year old and I had a whole room full of very good writers laughing so much I sometimes had to pause for a moment so they could hear what came next.

I had discovered the secret of getting attention without costumes or loud noises or singing or performing or even being there, necessarily. If people don’t want to read what I write, they don’t have to. Not like the sitar player downtown, who forces his music on everyone who passes, and even expects coins in his music case – so unseemly!

I try to be as funny and fluent and poignant as I can be, all by myself, quietly, not bothering anyone, at my computer or notebook. So that when somebody reads it, I might get a smile, or a nod, or hear a thoughtful, “hmm.” Or, the best prize: a full-on guffaw. For a moment I’ll have someone’s complete attention, and they’ll really understand how it is, or how it was, or how I imagine it to be, because I’ve written it.