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I have a dark secret I don’t tell most people…I write.

If someone does find out (which happens from time to time), it becomes one of the most awkward and uncomfortable conversations to have.  I’m usually met with skepticism (“you’re writing a novel?”) and sometimes even suspicion.  I don’t understand that part.  It’s as if people don’t know how to talk to me now that they know “I write.”  Like it changes who I am or more specifically their idea of who I should be.

There are, of course, the inevitable questions. What do you write?  Where do you get ideas?  Why do you write?

I recently had a kind of embarrassing experience when a group of people I just met found out that I write.  It shouldn’t have been embarrassing, but I didn’t know how to handle the questions.

I started a new job a couple of months ago and the weekend after the second week was my writing group’s annual conference.  Of course I got the inevitable question about plans for the weekend, so I told one of my co-workers.  She was…shocked, I guess is the best word to describe it.  It was obvious that the idea of going to a writing workshop was something completely foreign to her.  And honestly, I could tell that she thought it was just really strange.  But I got through the conversation, it was just one person.

Then the next Monday after the workshop my whole department ate lunch together and once I again I got the question about my weekend and my co-worker told everyone about the workshop.  I don’t know if I can adequately describe how uncomfortable it was to have everyone peppering me with questions.  I usually try to avoid answering questions about a specific project I’m working on, but it’s hard with six people all staring at you waiting for an answer.  So I gave them the bare bones, I focused on the fact that it is set in Grand Haven.  I work in Grand Haven and most of the people I work with live near there, so I thought that might be an interesting little tidbit.  It almost seemed to offend them.

Then the judgement really amped up.  What are you planning to do with it? Are you actually going to try to get published?  How much time do you spend writing?  Does your husband mind?

If I had said I knitted I wouldn’t have gotten this response.

Do you run into situations similar to this when people find out you’re a writer?  Do you ever avoid telling people?

I guess I don’t understand where the suspicion comes from.  So for now, I’ll just keep it to myself.  Maybe I’ll bring it up again if I ever get published.  That’ll show ’em.

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I’ve been struggling with what to write about this week.  For some reason I’m not feeling very wordy, or poetic, or thoughtful.  But then I saw a movie advertisement online and inspiration hit!

Adventure.

When you’re a child, a towel tied around a your neck can become a cape that helps you fly or a bike ride through a cemetery at night becomes a harrowing escape from ghosts.  But, where do those ideas come from?  Would a child be afraid of riding her bike through the cemetery if she hadn’t read or heard something like that before?  I don’t know.  But, I do know that what we read informs our imagination and leads us on adventures.  So, what was your first taste of adventure?

I read a lot as a child (and still do).  I read a wide range of books, everything from The Babysitter’s Club to books by Laura Ingalls Wilder and one of my all time favorites, Little Women.

But when I was six, on the nights when he didn’t have class, my dad read The Hobbit to me as my bedtime story.  I can’t imagine a scenario where that book wouldn’t plant ideas of adventure in a reader’s mind.  Now, did I remember every detail of the story from when my dad read it to me?  No.  I was six.  And there were lots of extraneous conversations involved about “reading it right!”  My dad sorely wanted to do all the voices and I wouldn’t let him; I was a willful child.

But I digress.

When the book was finished and I started reading more and more on my own, I may not have remembered all of the details, but I remembered a group of companions traveling in order to recapture their homeland.  I remembered hobbits, who seemed to live wonderful lives in their houses with the round doors and fully stocked kitchens.  I remembered a wizard dressed in gray who provided me my first taste of magic; something I still enjoy reading and writing about to this day.

But most of all, I remembered the adventure.  The travel to distant lands, and the encounters with new people and species.  I remembered a man named Bilbo who went against the nature of a hobbit and stepped outside his round front door and went on a adventure.  How his life changed with that one decision!  And it had a lasting impact on him, and his family (although I wouldn’t know about Frodo until years later).  Just knowing that books like this existed made me want to keep reading so I could follow more characters on their journeys; and it inspired me to have journeys of my own.

So, I guess my question is this.  What was your first taste of adventure?