Can't Help It

As she lay in bed half awake this morning, Fio contemplated her literary career. It started with a four-line rhyme Mrs. Rider assigned the class to write in the third grade.  All Fio can remember of her offering is one line, "feathered Vs across the sky," which was her description of a bird migration. Then, of course, there was Baylor Children's Theater, which introduced her to scripts and drama.

In junior high, she wrote more poetry, mainly adolescent angst, and discovered comedy. That was also when, inspired by her mother's collection of Book-of-the-Month romances, she wrote the first chapter of a novel (which disappeared when Mother went through her desk drawer).

In high school, Fio penned playlets for presentation by the Latin club and the English literary club, wrote mounds of poetry, and ventured into short stories.   She also represented her school in ready-writing contests and edited the school Latin publication one year and the state publication the next.

Fiorella continued writing poetry, short stories, and essays through her undergraduate years, then added a romance novel and a dissertation to her repertoire when she was in graduate school.

And here she is now with two published books under her belt, a blog overflowing with mini-essays, about twenty short stories hanging around that she wants to re-edit, Lord knows how many poems scattered about, and more to come.

The girl can't help it.

Why Write?

You've probably figured it out--Fio is a compulsive writer.  Whether poetry or prose, it flows right out of her (poetry or prose/out of her it flows), Why?  Sure, she read, read, read from childhood on, but a lot of people read, read, read, but never write, write, write.  So why does Fio have file cabinets stuffed with story ideas, clever lines, and golden words?  Why has she produced essays, reviews, articles, songs, sonnets, novels?  Why does she write a daily blog?

The only answer Fio can come up with is that somewhere along the way, a computer key in her brain got held down way too long..

Treasure Trove

 A Facebook quiz that purports to discern one's true occupation proclaimed Fiorella to be a natural-born writer. Well, duh!  Journalism, essays, poetry, short stories, novels--even songs and a short opera--Fio's churned it all out. Some of her stuff has been published, and some of it has won prizes, but most of it is stacked in shelves in her study, stuffed into filing cabinets, and locked into the bowels of her various computers--forgotten.

But Fio is now on a voyage of literary discovery because Husband has asked her to sort through her Documents file and reduce it before he transfers it to her new laptop.

It's like opening a pirate's chest and having a fortune in sparkling jewels spill out.