Thursday, February 19, 2009

the urge to write...





I guess I’ve always known that the urge to tell stories is something we’re born with. The first story I remember writing down was a story I wrote for the writer’s badge when I was a Brownie. No one in my Brownie company had asked to do this badge before and I caused my Brown Owl a headache, hunting down a tester. Anyway, the story was about a girl whose family was transferred to the Outback and she was really upset because she would miss Brownies, but then she learned about the Lone Brownies and all ended well.
Yes, I know, I’m still writing versions of that same story, aren't I?
I’ve heard it said that we all have a core story to tell. I guess this is my core story. And in a way I’m still playing it out in my life – yo-yoing back and forth between the city and the country.
But there is another kind of story I love and that’s fairytales. I’d say Blind Date with the Boss falls into that category. As a teen, I wrote lots of ugly duckling and rags to riches stories. And later, I wrote stories for my four children. This book – A Story About A Princess and Pink is one I wrote for my daughter Victoria and her friends Tanya and Ruth, when they were at kindergarten and used to fight over the pink dress in the dressing up box.
My children helped illustrate the book. I think Vicki was four when she drew this front cover pic. Richard drew the handsome Rainbow Prince at the end and I photocopied the pages at the library and sewed them together on my sewing machine. Never was a book produced with more excitement!

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

What a lovely story about your stories. I love your problem solving with The Lone Brownie and your self publishing is great!!

Eleni Konstantine said...

Barb, fantastic collaborative effort!! How special.

Magdalena Scott said...

Barb, A STORY ABOUT A PRINCESS AND PINK sounds like it would have been useful for my cousin and me when we were kids playing dress-up. Alas, that was eons before the story was written--and "published."

What a lovely keepsake you have there!

Romance, Rumours and Rogues said...

That's gorgeous, Barb!

My eldest kidlet is a huge fan of inventing stories, I should write them all down...last year, he 'wrote' his first book at kinder and they laminated it.

The title? 'Carnivores Eat Meat'.
Lots of dinosaurs killing themselves in it, and they all died in the end.

When I questioned him about the non-happy ending, he said, "Mum, it's just a story!"

Barbara Hannay said...

If only there had been computers back then! What fun we would have had with home publishing.
Nic, your son's dinsoaur stories sound so much like the ones my eldest boy used to write. He still loves writing -- and has had a play published. So who knows what lies ahead for your little guy?