There was a once upon a time, back in the foggy days of my early childhood when I eagerly wrote stories for myself and a small audience of my parents, friends and teachers.
Yet there were more than two decades bookending the last time I wrote anything for the gee whiz fun of it all and when I finally picked up the pen to compose whimsy once again.
Back when I was around five, and up until around the time I was eight, I wanted to be a writer. I’m not sure I wanted to be a writer as a profession. At least not exclusively. I just wanted it to be one of the many things I did, in between being a fireman, astronaut and super hero.
But even if I wasn’t willing to grant exclusivity, I understood the magic of writing at a primitive level; the ability to create something from nothing, like a magician, but with pages and ink instead of smoke and mirrors.
Before I was born, my mom worked as a secretary at TRW. In her previous life at the office, she could type about eighty words per minute on her IBM Selectric. Though there was rarely a need to use it, we had an electric typewriter from Sears which we kept in a high shelf in a rarely explored closet. The typewriter probably weighed about as much as I did, with a black snake coiling from the body of the behemoth and into the wall. When you flipped the switch, there was a powerful hum which vibrated at a volume which was only a whisper less than a generator.
I remember my mother feeding the beast with a sheet of pure white paper, then marring its innocence with ink at a speed that amazed me.
Clickity-clackity-clickity-clackity-clickity-clackity-clickity-clackity-clickity-clackity-clickity-clackity-DING!
She’d type for half a page or so, then rip the sheet from the mouth of the monster. A few times, stories were delivered at the other end of her display. These stories were simple, and though I remember none specifically, I’m sure they were parables about little boys who should have better manners at the dinner table, or perhaps show more kindness toward their younger sister.
One day, my father brought home a manual typewriter, also from Sears. It had the same beige, hard plastic cover. But under the hood there were more differences than just the dimensions. The manual had no cord and no current. The ribbon was dirty and got all over your fingers, smudging the white of the paper before you even fed it. There was no fancy backspace key which would allow you to erase your mistakes.
None of that mattered. The typewriter was mine, and my daddy said I could use it whenever I wanted.
Clackity…click-click…Clackity…click-click…Clackity…click-click…Clackity…click-click…Clackity…DING!
I started writing that day. Most of my early work was about robots, space, and probably He-Man, though I do remember one story featuring Spiderman in an epic battle with a monster snowman. Living in Southern California had lent snow a rather mystical quality to my eyes.
Though I’m sure each new story was every bit as horrible as the one which preceded it, I was five years old at the time and my parents seemed impressed. That was all that mattered to me. Same went for school. Though I always enjoyed writing amid the clickety clackety dings of the typewriter most, I often scribbled my stories at school as well. Whether they were humoring me or not I will never know, but the teachers seemed to enjoy them and regularly asked me to share.
Though I was kindergarten age, I was not in kindergarten. My parents had enrolled me in a school where they slipped books into my hands so early, I have no memory of ever learning to read them. The neighborhood school we were supposed to attend was an atrocity. My oldest sister went there, at least until the day one of the teachers told my father in a conference that “some kids are destined for mediocrity,” and “everyone would be a lot happier if they accepted this truth early on.”
The school was a mile and a half from our house. Still, had the rest of us been home, we would’ve probably been able to hear our father’s anger echoing across the campus hallways.
That was all my parents needed to pull my sister, now the senior nurse in her city’s largest hospital, from campus and enroll her in a private school just beyond our means. My other two sisters and I immediately followed. The school was small, owned by the same people who owned the preschool I’d been attending since I was two. The tuition was significantly less than a typical private school, but my family was by no means wealthy. The tuition eventually drifted from difficult to inconceivable, at which point my sister and I migrated to the best public school our parents could manage.
Even if the report cards said something different, the private school had no grades. Instead, students were encouraged to continually reach for the next rung of their ability. It was one of the biggest shocks of my life, moving from a school where my brain was given breath, to one where I was bored out of my skull, day upon day, in a never ending purgatory of doldrums and deja vu. Oz to Kansas it was.
In my old school, I would finish my work and then be offered a choice: I could either read, or write.
In my new school, I would finish my work and then be offered a choice: I could either sit and stare at the wall, or sit and lay with my head on the desk.
On the few occasions when I did manage to write a story, the teachers didn’t care. At least not like I remembered my old teachers caring. How could they, with thirty-five other students all clamoring for the same slice of validation?
I’m not exactly sure why I allowed the death of the writing spirit at school to follow me home, but like a wayward puppy it did. I was eight when I changed schools for the first time. Shortly after that, the manual typewriter was placed back on a high shelf and I never felt my fingers on the keys again.
It would be more than twenty years before I would write another story.
It is possible, my abandonment of the pen had nothing to do with my change in schools. It was also at that age when I discovered Stephen King and my world of words forever changed. Before I read The Talisman, stories seemed simple. I could mimic them in my own primitive way. After The Talisman I was content to go along for the ride as often as I could.
Exercise: Did you ever make up stories or draw pictures as a child? Were you encouraged or discouraged, and how did that attention make you feel? What sorts of things would you create? Don’t be embarrassed. Pretend you are that age right now, and write a story to impress your mom or dad.
Sean Platt is an author of books about life and professional ghostwriter.






