I really love to write. When I was still in grade school, I enjoyed writing stories to entertain. What I didn’t understand then is how I was the one being entertained. I wrote funny things which made me laugh when the teacher asked me to read my story to the class.
My mother turned me on to the joy of escaping into stories when I was young. Growing up without my brother and sister created a longing in my heart for a different kind of life. I had a few friends but the “hollow” had less than ten families with children my age. Not all of them lived close enough for visits until we were in high school and had a little more freedom.
Books took me into different worlds and I began writing stories in my head. My friends and I didn’t have hobbies. We played outdoors, along the railroad tracks, in the woods, following the bank of the creek which meandered into eternity.
I was six when I began to weave stories making my friends be different characters and we would ad lib our parts. At that time I lived with my grandmother and grandfather and only saw my mother about once a year. There was always a mother and child. I insisted on being the child, wanting but not realizing I craved a normal family life.
When I was eight, I moved to the “hollow” and lived with my mother, my new father and new grandmother and grandfather. Life was different. There were more people, but it still wasn’t the kind of family I’d imagined. I envied my friends. So the story weaving continued.
Now in my golden years, I see stories in my childhood years. These are the stories I’m writing today as part of a legacy I want to leave to my children and grandchildren. While it isn’t fiction, it is a wonderful walk into the past. A past where I pumped water into a bucket and carried it into the house, where I was frightened to go to the outside bathroom where spiders lurked. It is truly writing from the heart. It’s a world they will never see, and it was the best of times and the worst of times.
Perhaps it will become a published book in time. For now my goal is to have it published in time for Christmas this year.
Carol Ann Erhardt, Author 