Everything Has A Beginning. . .

So here's mine...


I went to a movie in March of 2009 and came out a changed person. I went home and read a book for the first time in my life for recreation rather than educational purposes. It took me eight days to devour four books (book one inspired the life changing movie). After that I said to myself, "What the hell took me so long to read. This is freaking wonderful." Yes, I am a convert who has left the realm of television for the vast worlds held together with bindings.

April of 2009 I'm enrolled in the most dreadful speech class in all of existence and decide to drop it and take creative writing. Now this class wasn't just fiction writing, but a combination of seven, yes seven genres and all taught by one man-- Mr. Arthur Wicks.

On the first day of class, Mr. Arthur Wickss says, "Creativity isn't something that's taught. You either have it or you don't. I will not be lecturing in this class, as there are fifty of you and I don't like talking in front of large crowds. So you will provide me with a minium of one submission for the quarter."



At this I think, Easy-Peasy, but he continues...

"If you are submitting prose it will be no shorter than and no longer than seven pages, and peotry submissions will be three one page poems at a time. You may submit more than once."

And again I think, So easy, and again he continues...

"I will copy each submission and hand them out to the class. Each author will read, standing right here." He pats the podium in the front of the auditorium. "After you have finished you will sit down and keep your mouths shut while the class critiques them."

At that I nearly threw up. For two weeks I fretted over a topic to write about, a topic that fifty people would appreciate and not eat me for lunch over, a topic that I found with the very man who wasn't going to teach us creativity... Mr. Arthur Wicks.

Two weeks into class he shows up, dressed down in black, pale as a pearl with his every present shock of white feathery hair, staggers around the front of the room like a drunk coming off of a bender and throws up in the garbage can in the front of the class. Poised as ever, he holds up one finger with his head still in the can and says, "It appears my vertigo hasn't subsided yet. Class dismissed."
Oh the joys of a brain. Mine went into overtime. Watching him vomit in the can, I thought, What would it feel like if you were half of some other, mythical, species and didn't know it until those genes started asserting themselves... probably like vertigo.

My seven page submission got great reviews, aside from my eroneous gramatical errors-- that's a different post topic-- and those pages turned into a full manuscript over eight months. Six months after that I joined a critiquing website--and yet another post topic-- and the manuscript evolved and is now the last of four versions of it that I've written.

Please tell me why you started writing. Where did you get the idea for your first piece, or current work in progress (WIP)?

Thanks for stopping by,


Jodi Henry

If you're wondering what this blog is about, here it is:

The wow's of writing and making it in the publishing world.
The books I love, hate and the ones I couldn't finish.
Monthly reviews of said books.
And hopefully, yes hopefully, interviews with the author's of my favorite books. (This one might be hard to accomplish-- but I do appreciate a challenge.)
I'm also open for topics... if you have an idea throw one at me.