|
I am born.
Which came as a surprise to my parents. They
thought they were done having kids after my older sister and
brother. Surprise!
I’m told my first phrase was “I do it my
ownself.” I learned to read early out of self-defense, because
everyone kept secrets from me by spelling. Once I started reading,
my older sister, Cathy, would sneak me into areas of the Helen M.
Plum Memorial Library that were considered beyond my kiddie ability
and she would check out more advanced books for me.
Charles Dickens has a lot to do with my
becoming a writer. He used the word unctuous to describe Uriah Heep.
Unctuous. Doesn’t it make you shiver? Me, too. And,
boy, realizing words were so powerful ignited my desire to sink my
hands into them, pour them over my head and let them stream all
around me.
I have promised my mother that I would tell
you all that the families and childhoods and traumas of my
characters are not self-portraits. That’s true. I had a great
childhood and have an even better family. Sure, there was youthful
angst, but I only ran away from home twice. Once, Mom didn’t realize
I’d gone, so maybe that shouldn’t count. The other time, I took the
two girls who lived next door along with, and it was a righteous
cause. Tuna fish – my sister was trying to feed me tuna fish! The
two neighbor girls and I were striking out for Hollywood, having
packed dolls, doll clothes and one pair of underwear each in my red
wagon. Alas, the Dairy Queen came before the train station and our
capital was seriously depleted before we were found. Otherwise I
surely would have been the only Oscar-winning screenplay writer
under ten.
Instead, I followed the normal education
track through high school in my hometown. Then I went to
Northwestern University, where I got a BA in three years in English
Composition and added a Masters in Journalism in the fourth year.
(If you’re wondering why the masters, check out the want ads and see
exactly how many jobs ask for someone with a degree in English
Composition.)
I wanted to write novels, but practicality
demanded something a little steadier. Especially because, while I
wanted to write novels, I didn’t actually write any.
I became a sports writer. It’s great training
for a writer – dialogue, character, motivation, conflict, goals –
they’re all there several times over in each event. Plus, I didn’t
have to get up early.
After being a sports writer for the Rockford
(Ill.) Register Star and assistant sports editor at the Charlotte
(N.C.) Observer, I moved to the Washington Post. That’s when I
really started writing. And it all has to do with dried wallpaper
paste.
I’d bought a house with 50 years of
wallpaper-paint-wallpaper-paint-wallpaper-paint layers. Sometimes
four, five layers of wallpaper, always topped with paint. On every
wall surface in the entire house. The only way to get it off was to
chip at it with a wide-bladed putty knife. Chip after chip after
chip.
Under the influence of the chipping and the
desiccated wallpaper paste, I started having a story idea. I’d type
until I didn’t know what to say next, and then I’d chip. Pretty soon
I’d have more ideas and I’d go back to typing. I thought it would be
a short story, but it kept growing. There was something very
inspiring about that dried wallpaper paste.
From a kind librarian I heard about a talk by
a writer who introduced me to the
Washington, D.C., chapter of the
Romance Writers of America, and I started to truly learn about
writing.
The wallpaper dust story is still in the
closet, but the first romance I wrote came out in 1990 as a
Silhouette Special Edition, HOOPS.
After serving as an assignment editor and
copy chief for the Post’s sports department, I went part-time to
write novels. Several years ago, I switched to editing for the
Post’s news service.
There is no more wallpaper dust in my house
(though plenty of other projects if anyone’s volunteering), but the
story ideas keep coming without it. Lots and lots of ideas. Way
more ideas than there is time.
So maybe the ideas didn’t come from dried
wallpaper dust. Maybe they came from dog hair. There’s lots of that
around here, too.
Yup, that’s got to be the answer.
Now, how do I end this thing? It’s an ongoing
story. I’m hoping for a happy ending eventually, but I’ve got plenty
of pages left to turn … ah, so there’s only one more thing to say:
I am writing.
Read
interviews with Patricia McLinn:
Some of you know that I’ve been sending books and other
packages to our troops serving in the war in Iraq and
Afghanistan. Lt. MaryAlicia Verdecchia is one of “my”
soldiers, who has become a friend.
Click here to read an address by Lt. MaryAlicia
Verdecchia, U.S.
Army, at the May 2005 Women Veterans’ Week in Branson, Missouri.
|
