Can a Writing Gene be Passed Down?

As I thought about my immediate family members, and which one to write about for today’s WP writing prompt, I decided to write about three. My Mom, my Dad, and my paternal Grandmother. All writers!

Writing in a diary was Mom’s idea. She got me a diary for Christmas when I was about eight years old, a “Five-Year Diary” with a lock and key, and room to write about 30 words a day. I remember asking her what I was supposed to do with it, and remember thinking it was a strange concept. My first entry was in response to her suggestion to write about the terrible flood happening in our city, so I wrote my only entry for that year: “There was a flud.”

I was also encouraged to write letters to my out-of-town relatives (all my relatives were all out-of-town), and was delighted to receive their responses. These two forms of writing have been a joy throughout my life!

But I always thought that writing poems or stories–my absolute favorite writing–was my idea. Judging from the typed papers I’ve saved, I started writing these when I was about ten years old. First I wrote poems about the things I found interesting, and later stories I imagined.

But now I wonder if it was the Writing Gene that was responsible for a lifetime enjoyment of writing!

It wasn’t until later in life that I realized that three of my closest relatives were creative writers. When I was still living at home before I left for college, my mom took a creative writing course by mail, and later began writing a book. I have a memory of her, sitting at her desk, smoking a cigarette, and staring out the window. I would later learn that she was mentally composing the perfect way of wording each sentence and paragraph of this non-fiction manuscript. She later told me how she would sit on the bus to and from work, and compose in her head. (Maybe that was how she retained a good memory well into old age!)

I knew my Dad loved words. I remember him stopping in the middle of a conversation to make sure I understood the meaning of the more complicated words he was using. And I enjoyed and kept the rare letters that he sent to me after I’d moved away. But it wasn’t until after my dear Daddy passed away that I realized that he’d enjoyed creative writing. I not only cherish the handwritten assignments from his creative writing course, taken while he was in the Air Force; I got to know him a bit more from the topics he wrote about.

I do remember talking to Daddy about writing, and him saying that my grandmother, his mother, used to write poetry, and even had some of it published. Unfortunately, we never found it. But it is enough for me to know that we shared that creative interest.

So, thank you! To my parents and grandmother, and maybe even their relatives further up the family tree–who knows?–for intentionally or unintentionally passing along to me your love of creative writing, one of the utter joys of my whole life. I love you and miss you!