I am a writer/wanna-be-author. I've wanted to be an author for as long as I can remember. I've been making up stories since I was two years old. When I was little (and by little, I mean up until age 12), I had 50+ stuffed animals. One of them was my make-believe husband; the rest were my "children." Each one had a name, age, and story line. My "husband," Tom (a Howdy-Doody puppet) had a job in a ketchup factory. I think I got that from watching Laverne & Shirley. I know, they worked for a beer company; but something about that scene where they are standing behind the line of bottles rolling by on an assembly line stuck with me, and in my 3-4-year-old frame of reference, they must have reminded me of ketchup bottles.
My "oldest child" was a stuffed monkey named Gordo. He was a trouble-maker. He was always causing problems for me and Tom.
I don't know where half the ideas I came up with for story lines for my "children" came from, but I do know that some of them were my way of figuring out my complicated world. I was born with the neural tube defect Spina Bifida. As a child with Spina Bifida, I spent a lot of time in and out of hospitals. I remember giving my "children" some of the same health issues I, or my hospital roommates, had. I remember hearing my mom talking to other parents or the doctors and nurses, and not understanding a lot of what I heard - things about children being abused, and/or used to gain sympathy for a parent who was having trouble with his/her spouse/significant other. I didn't understand those things, so I would replay the conversations/situations using my "children," then think about what I, as their "parent" should tell them to make them feel better. The things I told my "children" to make them feel better usually ended up making *me* feel better, so as weird as it all sounds that I did those things, I guess it was a good thing. Right?
