How do you know you're a writer?

When I was a little girl, I was a liar.

I lied about anything and everything, just because the lie was more interesting than the truth. I told one potential friend that I was born in China, and had two Great Danes so big I could ride them. I never really did it for the attention, or to get others to like me. I just saw the world a different way in my mind than it was in reality.

I lied to my parents. Not to keep myself out of trouble, but just to see if I could get away with it. Sometimes I did. And sometimes the lies grew too big to contain, and took on a life of their own. That's when I'd get caught in one.

When my parents, or kids at school asked me why I lied, I'd shrug and look away. I never really knew then why I felt so compelled to change the facts. Now I know that there is some part of me that has always felt the need to re-write reality to suit my wishes. Maybe that's a selfish desire, but that was what drove me to write my own books as a teen, finding something lacking in the books I'd been reading. I wanted to create my own realities, and writing novels was the best way to do that.

It's only in recent years, since I started writing again as an adult, that I've thought about the little fibber that I once was: a bragger of false truths, a teller of tall tales. There was never anything malicious in my lies. I was just a girl looking for something. The stories I tell now wouldn't be nearly as inventive if not for the imagination of that girl. Have I found what I was looking for yet? I think I'm getting there.

Am I still a liar?

No.

What? You don't believe me? ;)




How do you know that the writing life is the life for you?