Stoking the Fire

 

May 16 - Terry Shames here, telling who spurred my younger self to love writing; what I would tell them if I could meet them again; and who mentors me now. 

 I don’t think it was so much a “who” as a “what,” that sparked my interest in writing. The “what” was reading. When I was five, before I started school I begged my dad to teach me to read. I still remember him sitting down with me and working with me to make sense of those squiggly lines. Here’s the amazing part. At the time, he was going to college full time and working full time to support his family—my mother, my sister, and me. How did he muster the energy to teach me to read? It still amazes me.

It led to my love of reading, which had me devouring books. My mother took me to the library and I thought of it as a magical place. Then, in grade school, we had a bookmobile that came each week. The librarian let me check out extra books because I finished reading the ones I’d checked out before the next bookmobile visit. 

 Reading spurred me to want to write. I still remember in fifth grade reading a science fiction story, The Asbestos Man, and thinking that I would like to write a story like that. 

 Then, in seventh grade, my English teacher, Mrs. Kelly, instructed the class to write a short story about anything we wanted to write. I wrote a story sparked by a popular song. The next week, she said she had received many wonderful stories but that there was one in particular she thought the class would like and she was going to read it to us. I knew it was my story—and it was.

I suppose if I meet Mrs. Kelly again I would tell her how deeply satisfying it was to me that she chose my story to read to the class and that from then on I was determined to be a writer. 

These days, I don’t know that I have a particular mentor, but I love to attend panels, in person or virtually, and always feel as if I get something from other writers about the craft of writing, and sometimes even about the creative act. There’s something about the passion for writing that seems to spur writers to share their passion with others. Whether it’s William Kent Krueger, earnestly talking about his process and urging other writers to do their best; Jess Lowry giving her excellent classes, Shawn Cosby sharing his deeply personal understanding of where his writing comes from; Kelli Stanley, Charlaine Harris, Elizabeth George, Jeffrey Deavers….and countless others, who spend time to organize and present talks on how they do their craft—how they create, write, rewrite, edit, and produce works we all enjoy reading. It takes time and energy from their work, and yet they willingly share their passion and their knowledge. Those are my mentors.