Narrative: Monsters to Manuscripts

There it sat: the mysterious beige monster with the large square black eye. The beast was asleep… for now. But soon it would awaken and growl at the room, occasionally emitting angry squawks of displeasure. Next to it was an equally frightening monster. The beige cousin gave even more terrifying growls and shrieks. Luckily it liked to sleep more than the other. But when it was awake it would consume a long, white, lace-edged sheet, and then spit it out again covered in grey blood.

These terrifying monsters were kept in the spare room. It was a small cave that only Dad was allowed to venture into. He would come home from work, eat dinner with us, and then he would go into the room and wake the monsters. Barring a hockey or baseball game on the television, I wouldn’t see him again until it was time to go to bed.

But then one evening I was helping Mom make cookies. She asked me to take one to Dad. Taking the plate with shaking hands, I went to the cave of monsters to see if Dad wanted a cookie.

The two beasts were awake. The one big eye was no longer black; it was glowing blue and had white markings moving across it as my Dad made strange clacky noises on the desk. Then the other started growling as it started to eat the sheet. As the sheet came out the other end Dad tore the piece away and then tore the lace sides off. I gave him a cookie and he gave me the good news.

We were getting a second computer to put in the living room so everyone could use it.

Dad worked with computers. That’s why he would spend his evenings working on programs and other things I didn’t understand. But Mom wanted to keep family history charts, and my older sister wanted to play games. So using the unwanted spare parts from work, Dad brought home a second computer just for those two purposes. And then I saw that the computer and printer weren’t monsters after all; a computer was fun.

It seemed that just for me, the daughter just entering the first grade, there were a few special games. Thinkin’ Things was one I played often. Mostly I spent my time in the section for assembling puzzles, and I loved to assemble just one. It was a dungeon scene with cobwebs and a chandelier. And then there was Reader Rabbit—the original Reader Rabbit. It was quickly followed by Reader Rabbit 2. I spent hours sorting words into a trashcan or playing in the Word Mine. Due to almost constant playing I was above average in reading and spelling at school.

I got my own PC when I graduated High School. From experience with my older sister, my parents knew that a college student could not share the family computer. Mom didn’t want to give up time on the computer for the girls with ten-page papers and research reports. While I did use my computer for homework, I quickly put it to use writing stories as well. It made my early attempts at fiction writing much easier than it had been with a notebook and pen or pencil. The ability to delete rather than erase or scribble was the most important. Editing became simple and easier to read afterwards.

It wasn’t long before I discovered ways on the internet to post my work, and then have other people read it. Most important, they could review it as well. All of a sudden I had people that weren’t my parents or sisters reading my writing and actually liking it.

When I scribbled out stories in notebooks, it was purely for amusement. I came up with stories all the time. Some were good and others were bad; however, I was often the only judge of my work. As I grew older I didn’t want to show my family my stories—I didn’t want to give them a silver platter with hand-wrapped ammunition for teasing me. I immediately latched on to the idea of having total strangers read my work that I submitted with complete anonymity. As more and more different people read my work, and more and more liked it, my ideas about my future changed. Dreams of becoming a forensic archaeologist faded and visions of becoming a published author took their place. What once seemed a silly notion was a new possibility.

Now I use my computer to bring my hope of being an author to fruition. I’ve searched for publishers and their criteria for submissions online. I have been typing the manuscript for my book. Since I am currently working on an illustrated children’s book I’ve been using Photoshop to get the illustrations just right. And on top of it all I’m blogging about the whole experience.

It was only because I watched so much Star Trek that I could possibly imagine that one day I would have not only a computer of my own, but a portable laptop as well. Yet I never would have guessed that I would use my computer to write stories and books. Or that I would have a tablet to draw with straight to the computer. The instrument I used for learning to spell and read became the instrument for creativity. Who knows what I’ll be able to do with it next?