My father was always writing. He was the type who loved to type; running off after dinner to type, typing into the night, and typing through the day. He had a lot to type about and he typed on an old golf-ball typewriter; tap, tap, tapping with two fingers. It annoyed my mother.
Dad loved writing and taught creative-writing classes at a local high school. He was super-proud when one of his students had a book published; and he was also proud of his own short stories which ended up in a major newspaper. Some suggest that writing is hereditary. I don’t know, but I do know that I also love writing. I love using words to convey a story, and spend countless hours revising and editing in order to make my writing better. It was my love for writing that prompted me to enter a writing contest when I was 12 years old. The story was about my cat. Blackie was a cheeky cat who loved to play soccer with me; and delighted in tripping up anyone playing against me. You don’t find cats like Blackie; they find you and keep you for the duration of their life, using spare hours to snuggle up and dream of … playing soccer?
I won the writing contest and enjoyed my reward, a year’s pass to our local movie theatre. Every Saturday I would trundle off to the movies and have my imagination expanded. When I turned 12 my parents gave me a new, red bicycle. I loved it and used it to earn money delivering newspapers – the same one that my father wrote for. In conclusion, I am sure that my father passed on the writing bug to me and I hope to pass it on to my children too.