by Janis Patterson
What makes a writer? Is it genetic? Or the way we are
raised? Or something we choose that we feel we must follow? Or all of the
above?
To begin with let me say I am the third generation of a
wordsmith family. One grandfather was a small-town newspaper publisher in a
time and place where that was a position of power. Both grandmothers were at
one time teachers. My father was editor and/or publisher of several Texas newspapers, taught journalism at Texas A&M (he also separated the journalism department
from the English department and made it a separate discipline) and, with my
mother started and owned one of the top 300 advertising agencies in the US . My
mother was an English teacher, a play producer and a magazine columnist. I
started working in the family agency when I was nine – as a stripper, no less. (And no, it’s not what you’re thinking, but
it is a great line to use at a cocktail party!) I graduated to writing copy
when I was twelve.
Obviously I didn’t have a snowball’s chance of becoming
anything else but some variety of wordsmith!
But was it nature or nurture? Yes, our house was full of
books. It still is. The Husband and I live in a house with two dedicated
libraries and a hobby room with five enormous bookshelves. For that matter,
little drifts of books stacked on the floor and almost every flat surface seem
to breed in our house. But not all readers become writers, so I ask again, is
it nature or nurture?
I don’t know, but the question did strike me a couple of
days ago. I was going through some papers of my late father’s and there,
between two of the radio scripts he had written long ago, was a copy of my
birth announcement.
It’s a simple thing, a plain white piece of paper with black
print with a left-hand fold so it opens like a book. On the cover is the image
of a book with the title “Janis Susan – Announcing a New Edition – Best Book of
the Year.” There is also a picture of a rather startlingly disgruntled looking
stork in a top hat and glasses. I always wondered why he had such a peculiar
look on his face.
Open the ‘book’ and it says “The Author and Publisher
proudly announce the issuance of their 19XX (no,
I’m not going to tell you the year!) edition entitled Janis Susan May.”
Below that, it says “Author – Donald W. May – Publisher –
Aletha B. May.”
Below that it says “Publication Date – (the date of my birth) – DeLuxe Edition, with pink and white
binding weighs X pounds X ounces (I’m not
going to tell you that either, then or
now!). Cover jacket – white, removable. Reprints and Second Editions not
available this year.”
See? I was doomed from the beginning. Nature or nurture
makes no difference, for when one’s beginning of life is announced as a book,
one really has no choice but to become a writer.
In the for what it’s worth department, my father did the
announcement himself. He had a telling wit and I personally think the concept
hilarious. My sentimentalist mother loathed it and, once recovered from her
ordeal, sent out very proper handwritten announcements herself, probably
confusing a lot of people as to whether the Mays had had one child or two.
Sometimes, knowing the many dichotomies of my nature, I
wonder that myself. But then, I am a writer.
