Today our grandson, Joe,
is 16. Not bad for a boy who died 3 times before he was 2 years old.
We write for many reasons.
Something inside compels us. Someone outside compels us. We want to sit behind
the table at a book signing instead of stand in front of it. We want fame and
fortune. We want to meet Terry Gross. We want to impress at least some of the
exes who live in Texas. There’s nothing, however, that can match a grandchild
saying that you are a great author.
That’s what Brigid did
when she was in 6th grade. She started “An official fan site devoted
to John Robert McFarland, the Great Author.”
And when I wrote a book
for Joe, for his 11th birthday, Beware
of Page 7, only one copy, hardback, with his picture on front and back
covers [Brigid helped me do the production with lulu.com.] as we sat on the
sofa together and I began to read it to him, he said, “I love the way you
write.”
Once Brigid told her
mother that if he were alive, she would like to meet Mark Twain. “What makes
you think you’d get to meet Mark Twain, even if he were alive?” her mother
asked. “Grandma and Grandpa would introduce me,” she replied. Joe added, “That’s
about right.” Grandparents are ageless and know everybody.
When Brigid started her
senior year of high school, I wrote a book for her, too, about a girl in her
senior year of high school. Only one copy. It’s called Sunrise, the opposite of Twilight,
upside down, on a cupcake.
If you’re a writer, and
you have children or grandchildren, write a book just for them. I’ve had some
success as an author. Sold some books, won some prizes, got some reviews.
Nothing, though, makes a writer feel as successful as hearing a grandchild say,
“I love the way you write.”
John
Robert McFarland
You
can read about Joe beating cancer as a little boy at http://christinwinter.blogspot.com/
Brigid
and Joe’s mother is on twitter as KatieWriteBks. Her Learning to Swear in America will be published by J. K. Rowling’s
publisher, Bloomsbury Press, in 2016.
My
novel, VETS, about four handicapped
and homeless Iraqistan veterans who are accused of murdering a VA doctor, will
be published by Black Opal Books in 2015.
I tweet as yooper1721.
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