Coming Out of the Writer’s Closet

I’ve loved reading and writing for as long as I could remember. During summer when I was seven, a family friend gave my mother a couple of grocery bags filled with “Humpty Dumpty” magazines. My mom gave them to me and not my two older brothers nor my youngest brother, but he was only three. Instead of playing outside with my friends, I scoured every magazine until I exhausted my stash until school started in Septembers.

At the age of 13, I sneaked in my parents’ room and stole  some of  my dad’s books such as  The Power of Your Subconscious Mind,

Papillion, and unauthorized biographies of Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth Taylor. Learning that you could improve your life by  programming the subconscious mind was like having a magic wand at your disposal. Reading about sexual encounters and exploits in black and white shocked me. Did people actually publish books with sex in them?

During my elementary school years, I got into trouble for telling and writing tall tales.  In junior high, I wrote stories.  A couple of my English teachers told me that I couldn’t write. I’ve seen F’s scrawled on my fiction stories more than once. The sad part was that I believed them. I stopped writing in high school.  Over the years, I’ve kept my writings in secret journals–They’re bursting off of my shelves.

In college and as an adult, I’ve taken writing classes in an attempt to become a real writer. The truth is that I’ve always been a real writer. It took me several decades to make this realization. I believe we are all real writers.

December 12, 2011, I finally began writing my first novel. My first  goal is to complete it. I shall continue this writing journey–however many rewrites and rejections it takes . I’ve turned my major goals into many bite-sized morsels. Coming out of the Writers Closet has been one of the most liberating life experiences to date.

You can find me on Facebook and Linkedin as Janet Walters.  My twitter name is WordUniverse. You can also email me at janetwalters008@gmail.com.

Here’s to Writers of all types, ages and levels.