I used to throw horrible temper tantrums to get attention.  I only wanted to express myself, and in essence, I wanted to tell a story.  It may have been an immature story, but I wanted to be heard.  My dad had an idea that he thought would channel my emotions—he helped me write my own story using my own words rather than my high pitched scream.  It was a simple story based on pure imagination and creativeness.  It was a story that made me view writing differently, and it gave me a better understanding of the way the structure of a story was supposed to be.  This little story was not only amusing to me, but the fact that I was involved in “writing it” made it all the more captivating.  This may very well have been the first time that I began to understand how difficult storytelling really was.  Because of this little story that my sister and I created, I was convinced that everyone has his or her own story to tell.   It’s just a matter of finding it.
I must have been five years old, and my little sister Celia was three years old.  I remember taking our baths, getting into our floppy pajamas, brushing our teeth and jumping into the same bed.  Sometimes mom read to us, and sometimes it was dad—but we always had reading time before the lights went out.  At first, our parents read to us.  But as time went on, we would share the reading duties, passing the book around so everyone could offer their voice.  Sometimes we read Shel Silverstein’s poems, and sometimes we read Charlotte’s Web.  But no matter what the book was, we always sat on the bed together and read.  It was a peaceful way to end the day.
On this particular day we decided to spend our quiet, before-bed reading in a somewhat different way.  I remember my dad putting away the books and saying to Celia and I, “tell me a story.”  We were not quite sure what he was asking, but found that it really was not that easy to just simply, “tell a story.”  So it was then we decided to “make” a story, not all at once, but over many weeks.  We decided that each night we would read back what we wrote, but that we were only allowed to add two sentences each night, one from me, and one from Celia.  After about one week, we actually had two paragraphs of a story—a ridiculous, funny and at times absurd story.  And we found that each night, after we crawled into bed, we were anxious with anticipation to read what we had created from the beginning—and we laughed so hard that I am surprised the neighbors didn’t hear us.   But even though we were adding sentences everyday that turned and twisted the story in different directions, we also began to pay attention, more closely than I ever thought we would, to what we were adding.  I did not realize it at the time, but we were actually learning how to write a meaningful story, rather than stringing random sentences together.
         The early childhood memories of silly stories, poetry, and originality sparked my interest to not only write what I was told to write in school, but to be creative and express myself.  Reading Shel Silverstein’s poems made me realize that it’s okay to be silly, and it’s good to be different and spontaneous.  Being read Charlotte’s Web by my parents made me appreciate how a well-written story can make you think, laugh and cry.  I remember even today, the story that my sister and I would add a sentence onto every night, and I use that experience as a guide.  As life goes on, I will add to my story piece-by-piece, bit-by-bit, until I eventually come to a point where I am satisfied with what I have accomplished.  I am convinced that everyone has his or her own story to tell.  This was mine.