In 1978 there was on television the most incredible series. It was called, Connections. It was created, written, and presented by James Burke, a science historian. The idea behind its 10 episodes was that each of today’s incredible inventions began years ago with some totally unrelated invention and through subsequent inventions today’s miracle inventions exist.
Have you ever noticed that certain aspects of your life came about in a similar way? I have. I was not born a writer, a composer, nor an artist!
ART: The earliest of these three interests was art. I liked to draw, but never considered myself to be very good. I learned to draw from my older brother, who learned it from our father, who picked it up from his older brother. A few months ago I finished writing a 27 page short story entitled, The Princess Warrior, for my seven-year-old next door neighbor. It contained over twenty illustrations. (Actually, I gave her a much shorter version for her sixth birthday. She swiftly thumbed through it, asked, “Where are the pictures?” closed the three-ring binder and that was that. I fixed things for her next birthday.) I’m glad I learned to draw.
WRITING: Of course I had to write the usual book reports and research papers that came up in high school and college. But the event that eventually opened up a career in writing came about at the end of a university level class in history. Rather than giving his students an exam filled with dates, people, and events, the teacher simply gave each of us a list of about 50 to 60 words taken from the special part of history we had been studying. (Now this was long before personal computers and the internet.) We were to take a dozen of these words and write a paragraph about each one.
I chose to incorporate probably 20 or more words into a short story. It was my first attempt at writing fiction and I must have done well because I got an A on my paper and a nice compliment on the use of the specified words in a well written story.
Years later after sitting on a book idea for about 13 years, another “connection” took place. I was introduced to and subsequently enrolled in a correspondence course specializing in writing for children. And then near the completion of this course, the last few lessons were changed to an option to write a short book–just in time for me and my old idea. Suddenly I was writing my first book. I’ve written several since then, but it all began with that first opportunity to have a tutor help me learn how.
COMPOSING: I found a piano practice room in the basement of the dormitory in which I lived. As I played the only piece of piano music I could remember from a few lessons I had had as a kid, a sudden thought popped up in my head. “I bet you can write my own righthand melody to go with this lefthand accompaniment.” And I did. I’ve been writing music ever since (48 years). In fact, during the the past eight months, my nephew, Bill Walker, and I have had published three books of piano music. We each contributed 12 original compositions for each book.
It seems that I have been nudged this way and that way for a long time and with each turn in direction I have developed a new talent or discovered a new opportunity. My life has been and still is quite incredible!
I wager in many ways, yours has been too.
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