I selected a few of my published stories to combine with several unpublished ones for this collection. As I sorted through them, I noticed similarities. If you read the book, you’ll see how my Catholic upbringing has influenced my writing and how aspects of it slipped into more than one story. Perhaps that explains why I tend to dream up characters who struggle with doing the right thing when the right thing is SO hard. I also gravitate toward characters who aren’t especially likable. Author Lee Zacharias said during her recent book tour that “The novel is no place for the perfect life.”
I think the short story is the place for an imperfect person. I’ve always been interested in the what inspired a story and then the history of its revisions until it became the story a writer wanted to tell. For me, sometimes circumstances and past memories munged together and became something I never expected it to be. That was the case with my story Type A Little Faster. I read an online writing prompt just those four words -- Type a Little Faster. And like any writer given a prompt, my curiosity went wild. Well, who’s typing? Why does she have to type faster, is she too slow? Is she in a time-crunch? Does she have to get home to feed the cat, her baby, her elderly father? Is there a bomb that’s going to go off if she doesn’t type faster? And is it a she? Maybe it’s a he…a high school boy? Or an assistant to the mayor? Someone applying for a typing job? Who?? Who is it?? And who’s yelling to type faster?? A boss? Her MOM!!! Or…are those words in the typist’s own head? For crying out loud, what's going on? You can see how four words can explode a writer’s head and activate her creativity. Eventually, I answered all those questions in my story, Type A Little Faster. What I didn’t realize until after writing the final draft, was how much of my own life experience I’d written into it. As a young girl, I had been taught by the Sisters of St. Joseph until 7th grade when a male teacher joined the faculty. Every day he arrived in a suit and tie and wore fragrant cologne that filled the air of his classroom. He held himself as if he had mastered the world. I think he was all of 28 years old at the time. I was 13 going on 14. During that year, because of my interactions with him, I think I felt respected for the first time; someone who listened to what I had to say and who encouraged me to believe in myself. The character in my story has similar qualities but in the end instead of leaving the girl more confident, he leaves her feeling ashamed and disillusioned. I realized after writing the story how fortunate I had been.
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