When Did You Become a Reader?

Some of you say that you’ve been reading romance forever. I hear stories of girls who cut their teeth on romance novels. I know women who say their mothers introduced them to their favorite romance authors and novels.

Then there’s me.

I never read.
I daydreamed instead.

In my imagination, I created my own stories – all the time – and it made school (and sometimes life) very difficult. I was unlike the other students. I was very much a loner. My head never quite seemed to be there with my supposed “peer group.” The things they did, the stuff they enjoyed, boggled my mind. I had no interest in any of it.
I preferred to be off in my own little world.

There were times when I figured I was just nuts. I missed all the clues to my real personality. I never realized that I was a natural writer, not even when all the classes I chose had to do with either art or writing.

I knew I wasn’t going to college. That wasn’t an option in my family. It wasn’t something even discussed.
Never.
Not once.
Our family had bigger issues than whether or not the kids had a continued education.
So when in high school I had an opportunity to pick my own classes, it was Art, Composition, Humor Literature, Horror Fiction, and more Art.
I had all my required classes out of the way (and I had excellent grades, which my folks could never quite understand) so I could do what I wanted with my remaining time.
I wanted to enjoy myself with writing and art.
The counselor wasn’t happy.
I didn’t really care. I wasn’t disrespectful with her. Never that.
I was... mostly miserable.
I wanted to do what I could to get by with the least amount of misery.

Clue: That meant writing and art.
The counselor really wanted me to take foreign languages and more math and science.
I told her to talk to my mother.
My mother told her to leave me alone.
Done. Most of my junior and senior year of high school was spent writing or drawing.

Clue: Whenever given a choice on tests, I’d take essay type questions over true/false. I think I was the only one in the class who did. I knew I could write my way around any answer, whether I actually knew the answer or not.
But if I had to say emphatically if it was right or wrong, the odds were better that I’d mess up.
It still didn’t sink in that I was a writer.

The earliest that I can remember reading material of my own choice was when I found my grandmother’s True Romance magazines.
Sexy, scandalous stuff, at least for my age and the times.

My grandmother lived in a very, very bad neighborhood. Picture the worst... yeah, that's it. She kept a gun in her housecoat pocket, and she always wore a housecoat.
I loved my grandmother, but I hated it when I had to stay with her because she had these giant waterbugs and other creepy crawlers everywhere - thus my unreasonable fear of all bugs. To my vivid imagination, even a moth looks like... well, you see the photo. ALL bugs creep me out.

Clue: I was enough of a daydreamer that I imagined every night at my grandmother's as my last, and I imagined the end in the worst possible way.
Unfortunately, in that neighborhood, it wouldn’t have been a stretch.

My aunt lived close by. Sometimes I stayed with her. She had the same True Romance magazines. The upstairs of her house was “off limits” because (and this is really what they told me) it wasn’t safe and had to remain locked because people could get in through the windows.

Behind her house, in this very bad neighborhood, was a dark woods. I assume all types of horrible creatures (and humans) could have been lurking there, and I suppose it wasn’t unreasonable to assume some or all of them might have infiltrated that house.

Clue: I was scared to death of the upstairs, but I snuck up there anyway so that I could read the magazines. (Determined, that was me.)

One night as I sat there with only the smallest light on I thought I heard something, and it terrified me. Very quietly, very slowly, I leaned forward to listen - and the pillow I had behind my back fell over.
I fainted.
Literally.
When I opened my eyes again, I was so scared I couldn’t breathe. I got up and ran and I kept running until I got downstairs where everyone else was watching TV. When I shared my story, my aunt got her gun (Yep, she had one, too) and we all went upstairs to look. All we saw was my magazine. Everyone had a good laugh. Yeah, uh, ha ha.

That put me off ALL reading for awhile.
(Isn’t this a ridiculous journey toward my reading addiction?)

I remember seeing this thin red-haired girl in high school. She always had a Harlequin romance in her hands, and for some reason, I felt so sorry for her. I’m not sure why. She seemed very sad and alone... and very engrossed in those books whenever she had a chance to read. Hmmm...

Everything I’d ever read (assigned by the school) was awful, tragic, depressing stuff. I couldn’t imagine why anyone would want to read that baloney. Good grief, wasn’t life trying enough without using heartbreak as our entertainment?

Then, years later when I was a wife and mother of three, I got sick (bronchitis or something) and was stuck in bed. My sis brought me over a grocery bag of romance novels. I felt too yucky to watch TV or visit, so I tried one.
I flipped it open to the “juicy parts” - and was instantly hooked.
I finished every single page, and had to go back to the beginning to see what I’d missed.
I don’t remember the title of that book or the author.
Clue: I DO remember the story.

I read every book in that bag, and then got more from my sister.
I remember finding a local UBS and scouring the shelves for the oop (out of print) books by the authors who’d really gotten to me.
Once caught up on the backlists, I started buying new books.
I talked to folks about their favorites.
I got a “to be read” pile.
I became a book junky.

Writing came more naturally to me than reading did.
You see, at that point in my life I had everything I’d ever daydreamed about: an incredible husband, 3 healthy adorable sons, my own home, security, love, respect and independence.
But as much as I loved reading, there were a few instances where authors took a plot turn that I wouldn’t have taken.
Clue: In my mind, I wrote the scene differently.
Then on paper, I wrote it differently.
Finally I decided to start at the beginning and write the whole blasted thing the way I’d like it to be.

Looking back, I realized I was doing the same thing I’d always done. Only instead of keeping the stories in my head, I put them on paper.
They ALL had very happy endings. To me, that’s the way life should be.

I was always a writer and I just didn’t know it.
I guess I had to realize first that I was a reader, and then it all fell into place.

When did you start reading romance?
Do you remember how/when you got your first romance novel?
Do you ever have the urge to rewrite a scene?
DO you on occasion rewrite the scenes in your head?

I’ve told my husband that I wished I’d realized I was a reader and writer earlier in my life. But he’s a big believer that things have happened for us as they should. He feels I needed to be in the right place at the right time before the writer in me came out.
He’s a smart guy, my husband, so I agree.

Happy reading folks!