Mom – an inspiration for reading

One of my strongest memories about my mother is her reaction to a preacher one Sunday afternoon. I was raised with standard Southern Baptist traditions: church on Sunday, respect your elders, say ‘Sir’ and ‘Ma’am.’ The rest of the week was for the business of the real world.

This Sunday in question, I don’t remember the year except it was probably in 1998, the year this book came out. As I’ve said previously, my mother let me read any book as a child as long as I thought I could understand it. Which is why she took offense at the message from the preacher that day.

His sermon was about a new novel aimed at children. The book involved witchcraft as a plot point. It portrayed symbols of Satanism indelibly marked on the flesh of one child in particular. It involved teaching children to use magic and witchcraft. All of these things were anathema to the preacher and the lessons he wanted his congregation to learn. 

He preached that this book should be banned, that no children associated with the church should be allowed to read it, and that it should be burned as an instrument of Satan.

My mother, being a one time educator of children, took offense to these allegations. Immediately upon exiting the church that Sunday she and my father went to the nearest book store and mom bought a copy of the book she’d heard demonized that morning: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.

Mom had always encouraged reading in her own children, and believed any book that got more children to read and use their imaginations was a good thing. That a child might read this book and learn something, or just enjoy the act of reading, was enough to make her want to support the author and try to help others maintain access to this book.

Condemning a book for religious reasons never made sense to Mom. Learning was important to her, and she wanted to be sure her own children had every opportunity to learn and grow either with her help or on their own. Even if a book was offensive to some, I like to think Mom believed, others deserved the chance to make the decision ont heir own whether it was good for themselves or not. No one else should have the right to deny a person a book they wanted to read.

I know I firmly hold that belief myself. I value science, practical thought, and evaluation. Important decisions should not be made without information and understanding of those consequences. Hiding information from people encourages emotional reactions rather than planned actions. If such actions are enacted in the heat of the moment, the consequences can be disastrous.

I’m glad my mother had the opinions and thoughts she did, for she engendered in me a love of reading. I love fiction. It was probably my very first love, before TV and movies and certainly before video games. In the end, no matter the conveyance mechanism, the story is the most important thing one can get from entertainment. Messages and philosophies are important and fun, but the best part of a book or video or game is the story. That is the reason I write. I love the story.

Mom taught me to enjoy the story regardless of whether anyone else loved it. At the time I was reading it, the story was meant only for me. I thank her for that.

The Writing Journey

I think it’s only natural that for someone to want to write fiction they must enjoy reading it. From an early age my parents instilled in me the love of reading. Evenings after dinner were spent in the family room, each of us in our own little corner doing our own thing. The television was on to some movie or something Dad wanted to watch, but it was mostly just background noise. 

Dad would sit in his chair or on his corner of the couch (depend on the year I’m imagining), reading Louis L’amour westerns, Mac Bolan adventure novels, post apocalyptic journeys like Endworld and Blade novels by David Robbins, or Deathlands by James Axler. 

Mom would sit in similar fashion reading her own versions of adventures. Daniel Steele was a favorite, but so were John Grisham, Nora Roberts, Dean Koontz, and Sue Grafton. 

My brother and I would naturally pick up these books in turn and read them ourselves. One of the best lines from my mother when it came to what we could read was the simple statement: “If you think you can understand it, read it.” She never censored our reading options, and she never questioned our choices. Sometimes my brother and I scared our parents with our reactions to some of the novels, but that’s only because we began to read things they didn’t. Stephen King was one of the loves my brother and I shared that our parents did not. So when we laughed at passages from a horror novel, they gave us weird looks.

Those early years growing up, learning in school, and at home, books were the ultimate escape. I loved movies and video games and playing outside as much as any child of the 80s, but books were where I always returned.

It is this love of reading that ultimately inspired me to write my own stories. I’ll admit, as an author, I’m late to the party compared to some writers. However, as a fan and writer of fiction, I started as early as I could with encouragement from my English instructors and librarians. 

I wrote stories about kids my age doing amazing things. I wrote horror stories that I thought were absolutely frightening. I wrote stories about adults being badass like the action heroes from the movies. I wrote stories about my classmates (and boy did that turn out to be a bad idea). In the end, my junior high and high school writing career was all over the place, and none of what I wrote should ever see the light of day. The stories were hand written, mostly during downtime in classes or after school. 

Most importantly, I was having fun. The fun of reading turned into the fun of writing, and that was really what I wanted more than anything else. I wanted to have fun and keep the stories going. That is what I learned from my first forays into writing, as instilled in me by my mother and father. Reading can be educational, and reading can be fun. A story that manages to combine the two is even more amazing (I’m hinting at you, Michael Crichton who wrote the ultimate dinosaur novel). 

It is these books and stories and authors that have inspired me to try my hand at this writing thing. It’s taken me nearly twenty years to get good enough to start sending my own works out and, thankfully, see them get published. I can only hope that there are readers out there who find my stories and enjoy them as I intended. I fully recognize that once a story, or a character, or a concept is out in the world it is as much a part of the fans as it is the writer. I think that’s an awesome relationship to have between reader and writer. 

So to anyone who has found anything I’ve written enjoyable, please keep it, share it, and try your hand at it yourself if you’re interested. There will never be enough stories in the world.