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My love of writing actually started with the book I was given at Christmas. It was Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson.

I remember reading and rereading it. As much as I loved it, I saw parts I thought could be more interesting. I didn’t know anything about writing at that point. However, I remember thinking about how a scene could be “made better.” In high school, I took part in plays. I would faithfully learn my lines, but often I thought some of the lines could have been written better. It made me realize I didn’t want to be an actor but more a creator, a writer. About that time, I found the story that had been hand written on tiny little notebook paper. The story was not finished, but I loved what the author had done. I never found out where that story came from or who the author was. To this day, I wish I knew who it was who had written that story.

I started to experiment with writing. I had been reading a lot of science fiction, so I started trying to write little stories in the science fiction genre. I found out I was writing what I considered to be scenes but I don’t think I ever produced a whole story. When I started my freshman year at the University of Minnesota Duluth, I had to write for my freshman English class. I remember what a disaster that was. We would be assigned an essay to read and then told to write a “similar essay.” I did my very best to imitate the style of the writer of the essay we had written. I would even find other things written by that author to help me in imitating their style. Needless to say, I didn’t do very well. I don’t think it was ever explained to us that we were reading samples of types of essays and we are expected to write that type of essay. It might have been a narrative or expository or even a persuasive essay. It was literally years later that I learned about the types of essays and understood what I had been asked to do in my freshman class. Yet, those freshman English classes did not discourage my writing.

The next time I attempt to write on any scale was after I lost my family. With time to fill when not working, one of the things I turned to was writing. I was living in the Philadelphia area. I found several weekly newspapers mostly used for advertising in the suburbs. Most were willing to take something I had written. They wanted what be called feature articles. There was often no pay or at most five bucks. I would deliver what I had written by hand – no email in those days. I happened to mention to one editor about a great meal I had had the night before and suddenly found myself writing restaurant reviews. They went over so well that the newspaper picked up the cost of my meals.

There’s a funny story about the restaurant reviews. I reviewed an Italian restaurant, and I thought the food was excellent, but people wrote into the newspaper saying how horrible they had found restaurant to be. I couldn’t figure it out, so I went back to the restaurant had another meal and it was as good as the first one. I was finally able to track down one of the people who had written in about the awful meal they had had. They had gone to the restaurant on the weekend and both days I had gone I had gone on a Tuesday to avoid the crowds. I headed out the next weekend and sure enough the food was awful. I asked the waitstaff who had been cooking on Tuesdays and found out the head chef took Tuesdays off. The chef who filled in for him was the much better chef. I dutifully wrote about what I had found out about in yet another review. I remember being told the food improved after that review on weekends.

My next writing adventure led me to a publisher who paid cash for my work. I was always sure I was working for the mob! I wish I could remember but I don’t where I saw the ad for this publisher. I remember there was a phone number and I called and talked to the editor and he asked me to come up to New York City to see him. The “publishing house” was not far from Times Square. Times Square in the 1960s was nothing like it is today. The thing I remember about it was it was all about sex and drugs. You could buy just about any drug you wanted. There were peep shows if you just wanted to just look. There was every flavor of prostitution – both gay and straight – if you want to participate. You walked close to the streets so someone would not reach out from an alley and grab you to rob you or worse. Anyway, the editor’s office was up a flight of stairs then there was an unmarked door made of wood with frosted glass as the top panel and there was just a number painted on the frosted glass. The editor turned out to be an older man who almost always had a pinstripe suit on and wore what seemed to me to be old-fashioned spectacles, round lenses with a thin wireframe. He explained they were looking for short stories to include in collections. He showed me several and gave me one to take with me to serve as a guide. He called it erotica. You would call it porn.

In some ways, it helped me advance my writing abilities. I remember my editor asking for more details. He explained the kind of details the reader would want. The stories did not teach me anything about writing dialogue. Grin. The downside of that was it was almost like  using a formula. You just filled in certain blanks with details. I remember even going to department stores and wandering through the lingerie departments and even looking at the Fredericks catalogue for ideas. I was always paid when I delivered my work. I was paid in cash! The stories quickly became boring to write but somehow, I knew the writing would help in the long run. I continued to write for that editor until I started to date my current wife.

This history has gotten too long for a blog. I’m going to stop here for now.