My Passion for Writing and the Chinese Buffet

When I was eight years old, I read a book called "It's Hard to Say Good-Bye". At least I  think that was the title. I remember the cover had a picture of a girl and a big shaggy dog cuddling under a tree. It was a tragically sad tale about the big shaggy dog dying. After reading the book and weeping, I pulled out my little journal and I wrote "I just read a really sad book. My salty excretions dripped on the pages."

What? Salty excretions? I was eight. What did I know about any kind of excretions, much less salty ones? I'm pretty sure I meant tears, but it sounded like something left in a 84 year old's Depends diaper after chowing down on chips, popcorn, and well, salt. Maybe I was just a weird eight year old.

The point is, after reading that book, and realizing that a story could conjure up so much emotion, I decided right then and there that I was going to be a writer. I could come up with a tale that made the reader produce "salty excretions".

I started writing a series of books about two best friends named Laura and Sarah. I scribbled out their stories on a couple of pieces of typing paper. I wrote a whopping 12 books about these little girls, their friendship, their fights, their stuffed animals. I even terribly illustrated these pamphlets, and I pretended I was a book critic and wrote out rave reviews on the back cover sheet of typing paper. Once I decided to end the series by giving Sarah's dad a job transfer to the Himalayas, I started writing short stories.

My first short story, written at age nine, was about a truck driver that stalked a young girl over a C.B. radio. I don't know how in the hell I knew about truck drivers or C.B. radios at that age, but I wrote 20 pages about it. As you know, it was later made into a movie called "Joy Ride", starring the delicious Paul Walker. Who knew a nine year old originally wrote "Joy Ride" in 1990?

My entire world was turned upside down when I was eleven and my daddy passed away, but I began writing more than ever. Writing became my outlet. I started writing books and poetry about loss and heart attacks and grief and anger. Looking back on those stories last night, they were terribly sad. I was a sad kid, it was a sad subject, and I had really sad, fat handwriting. It was enough for me to produce "salty excretions".

If my father hadn't died, I know I would have kept on writing. However, I know I would be a different writer, and the characters in my books would be different, too. To this day-19 years, 45 short stories and two novels (aka really long short stories) later- none of the main characters in my books have a father. I have to write things I know, and I haven't known how to write a dad in a book since I was eleven.

I've been working on the same book now since 2005. Yes, 2005.  It is nearly completed, but with life and children and an OCD need to clean baseboards, I just haven't been able to focus on this book.

I really do hope that it turns out to be marvelous, but I do not want to build it up by saying, "It took me 7 years to work on this piece," and it end up being a piece of garbage. I just know only two copies will probably be sold-both of which are purchased by me. Oh, think positive, Susannah! How long did it take Sun Tzu to complete, "The Art of War"?

Last weekend, my family and I hit up the Chinese Buffet. After the boy had a melt down over a scorching egg roll and a lip burn, the fortune cookies were delivered. I was expecting to get my normal junk fortune.

"Give a friend advice on Tuesday." Yeah, I was sick on Tuesday and didn't talk to a damn soul. I am the one that needed advice. DayQuil or Sudafed?

"Talk quietly and people will listen." Yeah, except for my half-deaf Aunt Ida.

"You will be invited to an exciting event." Yeah, the invitation to go down to the local car lot and try to start a Camaro with a fake key didn't work out.

However, when I opened my fortune, I nearly cried. I nearly produced salty excretions.

Right there, in the middle of a southern Chinese Buffet, surrounded by Nascar fans eating General Tso Chicken and a small Asian boy Windex-ing the sneeze guard and contaminating the Lo Mein, I nearly cried.

I finally got a fortune that I felt was really meant for me. It wasn't your run of the mill "be a good friend" bla bla fortune. It was a blessed cookie. It was a blessed fortune. And I am blessed that my desire and excitement for writing is back.

Get your chips and salsa ready, baby. My work just might make an appearance at your book club some day. And you just might cry "salty excretions".

Susannah say, "Thank you, Confucius."