Writing is like going to Grandma’s attic where things are covered with cobwebs. A pair of high-heeled satin shoes sits next to baby chicken boxes—holes on the sides, tall enough for one pullet. A broken picture frame leans against a wooden wheelchair.
Maybe my Auntie Franc squeezed her feet into those satin shoes for a fancy party where she met a nice gentleman. My Uncle Maurice, maybe?
And what about the wooden wheelchair? My great-grandfather Carlson might have used it. Did he live in this house?
The chicken boxes make me think, too, about tiny, fuzzy yellow birds that made peep-peeps sounds when Grandma brought them home from the hatchery.
Any of those relics hold their own stories—fact or fiction—and are waiting to be uncovered, like gold dust hidden in California’s rocks.
When I am ready to write, I go to the attic of my mind. There I find a newspaper article about an artist who bends and twists heated neon light sticks to make his designs, a story about a girl who disguised herself as a boy, and a 140-year-old cabin in northern Kansas. I dust off the cobwebs and bring them into the light where they become magazine articles.
I’ve always said that I couldn’t make up anything as fascinating as real life, so I’ve decided that I like non-fiction better than other kinds of writing. Such as this: a fourth grader dreamed about a dress made of blueberries. A grandfather roasted a pig in an underground pit for his troop’s dinner during World War II. And when workers couldn’t get the first cable across Niagara Falls to build a suspension bridge, a fifteen-year-old boy flew it across with his kite.
Most of all, I like to write non-fiction to tell about real people. Gordon Parks refused to let prejudice beat him down. His mother told him that if a white boy could do something, he could, too.
Tex Winter’s father died when Tex was eight. His family pulled together as a team to overcome the Great Depression. He became a successful basketball coach because he believed in “team.”
To find those reasons, I spend time with people, get to know them, and watch them be amazed about their own stories.
Writing non-fiction is a way of looking at the world. Just as I want to know about the oddities in Grandma’s attic, I organize what people say or do. What comes first, second, last? Who lived in the Kansas cabin and why it is worth saving? Were the soldiers out of food when they roasted the pig in the ground? Why would Emma Edmonds call herself Franklin Thompson to serve in the Civil War?
For me, non-fiction writing is about loving people, being curious about what they have done, and wanting to share their stories so others can learn from them, too.
