How Did It Start?

How does one begin a writing career? 

I don't know, but here's my tale:

👈Shortly after this picture was taken, my older sister Teri taught me to read. Yes, I was obnoxiously precocious that way.

Back in that era, the early to mid '60s, my parents put me in charge of my little brothers and younger sister when they went bowling four nights a week. I was 9 years old, and in those days, nighttime radio was boring, nighttime tv went off the air at 11:30, and the silent house was scary. Once the kids had gone to bed, I taught myself how to type on my mom's Underwood. I used stocking cards* and math paper from school instead of my mom's good paper.

My first short story was about astronauts exploring a dead planet, and reporting back that it was a shame the people of Earth had destroyed themselves. It was fewer than 500 words. Don't you know, the following year, Mr. Spock's Music from Outer Space featured the same story called "The Dead Planet."

My first poem was about a vampire. I had already begun to show the effects of reading all the Hitchcock anthologies in my town library. That year, I had to get my mom's permission to read Fantasy & Science Fiction Magazine because I was only 10 years old. 

That was the year I said to myself, "One day I'll publish a story in this magazine. One day I'll write a book." 57 years ago.

My first play I wrote in 7th grade for an English project on mythology. It was called JohnDealMan vs. The Gods. It was about this annoying unsuperhero, a kid in my class I'd been in rivalry with since 5th grade, who wanted to be a Norse god. More on him in a bit. I got an A. 

I also started keeping a journal in the third-person POV under the name "Crystal Leighton." I thought one day my exciting adventures as a nerdy teenager might make for a novel. How weird that 55 years later, my grandson's name is Leighton?

My first novel was called Spy Kids. I loved "The Man from UNCLE" (Team Illya Kuryakin) and detective shows, so this novel was set in Hawaii (I had a pen pal from Oahu. Do you even know what a pen pal is anymore?) and the plot was about these kids who discover their parents are spies for the National Unit of Top Spies (NUTS) and have been captured by evil agents of FLAAB (I forget what that stood for, but it was cool, never doubt it). I handwrote it in various colored inks from a 12-color pen, again on math paper (the kind with wood chunks in it), stocking cards, and graph paper. My 8th-grade reading teacher read it aloud to the class because, hey, it beats making up lesson plans, right? If the title and plot sound familiar, believe me, no one was more ticked off than I was when that movie came out.

1968 Summer Reading for 9th grade was The Hobbit. That began my "descent" into genre fiction. I emptied the town library shelves, then the school library shelves. I learned to write in Tolkien's Elf languages. I discovered "underground radio" before they had real call letters. I wrote songs, stories, poetry, and I began the first inklings of a novel four years later when I began college. The Sword, the Pendant, and the Wizard's Eye. Is that a cool title or what? 122K words!

I also fell in love with JohnDealMan. That is, Jack Deal. We have been together since 1971 with just  a few bumps along the way, and I have to tell you that he has been my rock throughout all the weirdness of my writing non-career.

So that's how it started. Stay tuned for more of the journey.

*For those too young to remember, before there was pantyhose, stockings came wrapped around a cardstock insert.