The Long Way Home to Becoming a Children’s Author – June Theme by Tamera Wissinger

For me, knowing that I wanted to be an author, in particular a children’s author, came about in a long and zigzagging way.

I have always loved rhyme, rhythm, and stories. Here is the first book that I remember reading and chanting when I was very small:

In school I loved writing stories and poetry:

But if you had asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I would have said:

A DOCTOR.

Because at the time I knew of no women who were doctors, and that fact alone was great fuel. My plan would have worked if it weren’t for:

SCIENCE 

AND MATH.

My back up plan was to be an:

OLYMPIC SPRINTER.

This plan would have worked, too, if not for:

LONG AND GRUELING TRAINING.

So when I graduated from college with a non-teaching English degree, I did the most logical thing and:

ENTERED THE BUSINESS WORLD.

It was right up there with my doctor and Olympic athlete plans, but I became quite a proficient business writer and at least it paid the bills. The whole time I worked in the business world, though, on nights and weekends I was:

SECRETLY WRITING STORIES AND POETRY.

One Friday night, after many years of doing a type of work that I didn’t love, as I lamented to my husband that I wanted to be a writer, he said:

"IF YOU WANT TO WRITE, THEN WRITE."

Oh. 

In that one phrase, he removed all of the years of obstacles that I had built up. He is also the person who, a year or so later, suggested:

"MAYBE YOU SHOULD WRITE FOR CHILDREN."

Coming off of a horrible screenwriting experience, his advice sounded very good to me. That was more than eleven years ago and I’ve never looked back.

No short cuts here in recognizing that I wanted to be a children’s author, but after taking so long to arrive it feels as though:

I’M HOME.

Note: I made a short video on this same theme, and am sharing it today on my website: The Writer's Whimsy.
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Now that she has figured out what she does well in life, Tamera Wissinger spends much of her time writing stories and poetry for children. Here recent work includes GONE FISHING: A Novel In Verse, and THIS OLD BAND. For more about Tamera, you can visit her website: www.tamerawillwissinger.com, or follow her on Twitter @TameraWissinger.