Welcome to another edition of Open Book Blog Hop. This week’s question is: Where were you at 21? How does that reflect in your writing today?
When I was twenty-one in 1982, I entered my junior year at Rocky Mountain College, located in Billings, Montana, about 150 miles north of Sheridan, Wyoming, where I’ve lived since 1973. After attending the local college and living at home for two years, going to school away from home was quite an adjustment. Fortunately, it wasn’t that far away, and I came home weekends when I could get transportation.
I never considered a career in writing at the time. This was probably because my mother, may she rest in peace, rewrote most of my school papers, even when I was a student at Sheridan College. She taught English there and apparently didn’t want her fellow faculty members, from whom I took English, to see my less than adequate writing style. Who knows why she rewrote my high school assignments?
Instead of writing, I pursued a career involving music. Long story short, I became a registered music therapist and worked in nursing homes and other senior facilities for years. I didn’t do any serious writing until my mother passed away in 1999.
How about you? What were you doing at twenty-one? If you’re an author, how has that affected your writing? You can click here to participate in this week’s hop and read other bloggers’ responses.
New! Why Grandma Doesn’t Know Me
Copyright 2021 by Abbie Johnson Taylor.
Independently published with the help of DLD Books.
Sixteen-year-old Natalie’s grandmother, suffering from dementia and confined to a wheelchair, lives in a nursing home and rarely recognizes Natalie. But one Halloween night, she tells her a shocking secret that only she and Natalie’s mother know. Natalie is the product of a one-night stand between her mother, who is a college English teacher, and another professor.
After some research, Natalie learns that people with dementia often have vivid memories of past events. Still not wanting to believe what her grandmother has told her, she finds her biological father online. The resemblance between them is undeniable. Not knowing what else to do, she shows his photo and website to her parents.
Natalie realizes she has some growing up to do. Scared and confused, she reaches out to her biological father, and they start corresponding.
Her younger sister, Sarah, senses their parents’ marital difficulties. At Thanksgiving, when she has an opportunity to see Santa Claus, she asks him to bring them together again. Can the jolly old elf grant her request?
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