Fifty Years Between Books

It was destiny that created my first book. Had I not been the oldest child, of the oldest child, of the oldest child, I wouldn’t have been sitting on the floor with my aunty and uncle’s as they covered their school books.

I watched them carefully cut the brown paper to the right size, then crease the fold lines sharply with their thumb nails. Then they would wrap it tightly around the cardboard cover. There was some discussion regarding the appropriate cut-outs to use for decoration. A year worth of my grandmother’s magazines were strewn across the floor. The latest editions had the school label section, a nice picture with space below for name, class and subject. I really liked the one with the cat.

It was the end of a hot summer, and the beginning of the 1973 school year. I was almost seven. And so it happened on this day I became a writer.

There was one book left for me. Smaller than the others, it was ruled differently. Three parallel lines on each row, the highest for the capitals to reach, and the other for lower case. Exactly like I used at school.

‘If we give you this book,’ one of my Uncles said, ‘what would you use it for?’

‘I’m going to write a story.’

It was the correct answer, because minutes later I held the little book in my hands, covered beautifully in brown paper and proudly displaying the cat label. In my neatest handwriting I wrote on it my name, Michelle W. I left the other two spaces blank.

And so it began.

Once upon a time I lived next door to a witch.

The movements were fluid, and as the tip of the pencil washed across the page things around me blurred. I wasn’t in my grandparent’s lounge room covering school books, I was sneaking a look into my neighbour’s window.

She was very old with long white hair and wrinkled skin. Her cat was beautiful. He was orange and white and really big. He sat on her lap.

In my mind’s eye I could see her room.

The window was open. She liked to spy on people who walked past. She would hide in her plants so they didn’t see her. But she would be watching.

The cat knew I was there. The hair on his back began to stick up. His tail swung quickly. He stared at me. The witch turned to see what the cat was looking at.

‘How’s it going?’

It was a sudden call back to reality.

‘Good,’ I said. ‘Do you want to hear what I have written?’

They nodded, and using my best reading voice I shared my work. They clapped and said all the right things. Until someone asked.

‘Why did you start with “once upon a time”?’

‘Because that’s how stories start,’ I said.

‘No, they don’t have to. It’s your story you can write what you want.’

Now it was true, when I was seven, a great deal of children’s books did start with “once upon a time”. Perhaps I was conditioned, but the thought of beginning a story in any other way seemed simply wrong. At least it did until that moment, when my writing world suddenly expanded. I can write whatever I want!

It was at this moment of awareness that I really wanted to be a writer.

I reconsidered the beginning of my story. As I stared at my neatly formed letters I realised I didn’t want to change it. Not because of what it said, but because it horrified me thinking how messy the corrections would look. I decided I would change the end.

‘Hello little girl,’ the witch said. ‘You have very pretty hair.’

‘Thankyou. I like your cat.’

‘Did you want to pat him. His name is Puss.’

The witch stood up and walked to the window. Her fingers were long and crooked. I shivered as she came closer. Puss purred and rubbed his neck against hers. The witch smiled. Her teeth were black.

It was then my Mum called me. It gave me my first ever deadline. I quickly summed up my options, and decided just because my witch looked scary, she didn’t have to be bad.

‘Don’t be scared little girl. We aren’t all bad,’ said the witch.

Then she smiled again. This time I saw her eyes. They were beautiful.

Quickly I wrote ‘THE END’.

It was fifty years before I wrote another manuscript. I finished the first draft last month.

I talked about writing a novel all the time. It was my dream. Time moved on, and on. I was always going to do it, one day. It was when I was considering my own mortality I speculated on what I would regret not doing in my life. Number one on the list was not writing a novel, and it struck me that the only reason I hadn’t was because I had simply stopped writing. Not the type of writing you do at school or university or for your job, but the type when you write whatever you want.

I feel like I have found myself again. Not just because I have finally completed a manuscript, but because I have finally let myself be a writer.

I haven’t written THE END on my manuscript yet. Unlike my seven year-old self, I accept there are changes that must be made. On a computer these changes aren’t as daunting as those to the words carefully written by hand. I have set myself a deadline, and when I finally do type, THE END, I have promised myself it will just be the beginning. I have so many more stories to tell.