Sorry. I didn't mean the discussion we've segued into. I was referring more to the more lit. evaluation type discussion that was happening earlier. I actually was hoping to avoid you feeling like you didn't want to be here, Deb, since I know that that conversation isn't your favorite. I must have misread.

In reading the takes the writers in this thread have posted up about this so far - P-C's dino thing (which made me happy), and Susan's talking horse, and Hil's "can't go out" story - I'm absorbing an impression that creative people tell themselves the "immediate or daily impact on their lives" stories as kids, and then those transmute into our later stories.

I think I get what you're saying here, but I'm not seeing the "immediate or daily impact" on my life in my horse stories except that I was generally horse-mad and had at the time I wrote that story specifically fallen in love with a fantasy world featuring Talking Beasts.

When I was a kid, I got bucketloads of "You couldn't have written this." because I was a little blonde girl in a wheelchair and should have drowned looking up in a rainstorm like a turkey, right? And then, as now, I imitated people talking and stuff I read all the time.And a lot of times the stuff I caught, wasn't really stuff people liked to see, not from me, at any rate.
Only then, it was even "worse" because that thought hadn't really entered my head yet, I was just on my own little Harriet the Spy trip, and I'm a mimic, so I hadn't even considered people not being ready for a story from a fourth grader where somebody gets irritated and says "God bless it!" so they don't curse. Then, my special program got attention for my going to "Young Author's" and stuff so they were all behind me after that.(I would have paced myself had I known that was gonna happen two million more times.)

ETA: Susan, I still love the occasional talking beast story. I plan to see "Racing Stripes" for instance. Not for critical reasons.

Kristin, I am totally with you on the "let's not decronstruct" stuff in here. So very much with you.

Hil, you were horse-mad, and couldn't have one. You wrote stories about horses - you didn't suddenly decide to tell stories based on exploration of deep space. I know it sounds obvious, but I'm processing the variances between the stuff that interested us as children versus the stuff that we wrote or told stories about as children versus what we produce as adults.

(eta - not the impact of your stories on your everday life - the impact of your everyday life on your stories, as a kid.)

because I was a little blonde girl in a wheelchair and should have drowned looking up in a rainstorm like a turkey, right?

How much do I love this line?

Ah, that makes sense.

And I've often thought that almost everything about who I am as a reader and writer falls into place if you know the books I adored and re-read to tatters as a child were the Little House and Narnia books. What do I prefer to read? Historical fiction of any genre, and fantasy. What do I write? Historical romance, with a few ideas for straight historical fiction and saga fantasy percolating in the back of my head.

So, maybe the whole thing that passes for my professional life may just exist because "They said he couldn't do it. He did it anyway. Ooh, he's in so much trouble." And I thought I was deep. (And of course, the Wambaugh-with-mother's-milk connection cannot be ruled out.) It added to my "Such a *strange* little girl!" thing, pretty much. That, and expecting to grow up and go to jail for my convictions. ETA: Thanks, Deb. Growing up, it's no wonder I liked comics because, well, it felt like having a secret identity just being in the grocery store. Most people didn't know who I was.

the impact of your everyday life on your stories, as a kid

I was boy-mad early on, and one of the first stories I ever wrote was essentially a romance -- a college student has a flirty encounter with a man she later discovers is her professor. They kissed and everything. I think I was eleven at the time. I find this pretty funny now that I'm writing romances.

I think you're right, Deb -- I was also fascinated with death and illness. Beth in Little Women Mary and the-sick-boy-whose-name-I-can't-rmember in The Secret Garden, Sara Crewe losing her dad in A Little Princess. My mother was chronically ill with what we later discovered was lupus, so stories of orphans, widowers, death, and illness all resonated with me big-time as a reader. And some of the first stuff I tried my hand at when I got older was horror, with death and ghosts and...you probably get the idea.

Also, Deb, I was joking with the baby-underfoot stuff earlier, in that I knew you didn't mean that. It was just my painful joke, since it is so very, very true for me right now.

I'm processing the variances between the stuff that interested us as children versus the stuff that we wrote or told stories about as children versus what we produce as adults.

This is fascinating. Right now I'm trying to think back to the kinds of stuff I wrote as a kid and what I like to write now. I have a feeling that what the two things have in common isn't so much the content (talking horses--of which I had a-plenty in jr. high stories) as certain story elements.

Stories I wrote then and things I've written in my adult life both tend to feature characters trying to discover the truth about their histories (Deb, this is one of the reasons I love the Penny and Ringan novels). I also started subverting traditional fairy-tale tropes at an early age. The thoughts then weren't "Let's subvert this trope" so much as "Wouldn't it be funny if..." I have also always preferred bittersweet or happy-sad endings to out-and-out happy endings.

The content and style of my writing have changed greatly, but if you replace the talking horses with burned-out detectives, there are some clear similarities.

Speaking of talking about my own writing ... I posted this in Press, but ... I'm going to be on the KUCI's "Writer's On Writing" tonight, 5 p.m. PST, 8 p.m. EST, with host Barbara DeMarco-Barrett. Reading poetry, ranting about the man, whatever it is I do. Listen live at: [link]

Well, I loved Narnia and Nesbit books and general fantasy and sci fi as a kid, but I write very naturalistic pieces. What drew me in were the characters--I have always been interested in books as a window into other people's lives and hearts. I also loved The Big House books and Alcott and Dickens for the same reason.