And my mother, God love her, encouraged me to do it every step of the way.
When I was very, very little--I mean, too young to write much beyond my own first name--I would dictate stories to her. These were often less than one notebook page and were stories about characters that I knew from TV shows, movies, or the thousand and one picture books that had accumulated since my first birthday. Stories like "Mickey and Minnie's Day Off," or "Do-Good Dog Eats Too Much Junk Food," or "Donkey Dan Cleans His Room." I didn't know then that I was essentially writing fanfiction (I told you I was a born geek, didn't I?), and my mom didn't let me in on that secret just yet. Instead, she wrote down the stories that I told her, and then hand me the notebook so I could illustrate them. She never told me "This is a waste of time" or "If you want to do this, learn to write, I'm too busy." Later, when I got older and learned to type, she patiently sat next to me while I wrote version after version of "The Nutcracker" and "Once Upon A Clothesline," both of which were plays that we had seen in local high schools. I must've been about eight then--maybe younger, I don't know. My dad would act them out with me, sometimes videotaping, mostly not. We still have those tapes somewhere, and I'm sure if you dug through the hard drive of that old computer, all those "Nutcracker" word documents would still be there.
When I was very, very little--I mean, too young to write much beyond my own first name--I would dictate stories to her. These were often less than one notebook page and were stories about characters that I knew from TV shows, movies, or the thousand and one picture books that had accumulated since my first birthday. Stories like "Mickey and Minnie's Day Off," or "Do-Good Dog Eats Too Much Junk Food," or "Donkey Dan Cleans His Room." I didn't know then that I was essentially writing fanfiction (I told you I was a born geek, didn't I?), and my mom didn't let me in on that secret just yet. Instead, she wrote down the stories that I told her, and then hand me the notebook so I could illustrate them. She never told me "This is a waste of time" or "If you want to do this, learn to write, I'm too busy." Later, when I got older and learned to type, she patiently sat next to me while I wrote version after version of "The Nutcracker" and "Once Upon A Clothesline," both of which were plays that we had seen in local high schools. I must've been about eight then--maybe younger, I don't know. My dad would act them out with me, sometimes videotaping, mostly not. We still have those tapes somewhere, and I'm sure if you dug through the hard drive of that old computer, all those "Nutcracker" word documents would still be there.
I remember being eleven years old and deciding, out of the blue, that I was going to write a book series. You see, back in those days I loved The Baby-Sitters Club series (I know, I know) and by that point I had a grasp on that "original characters" concept. So I decided, why not? I could write about ten and eleven-year-olds; I knew that age demographic well enough, didn't I? That was when my mom finally decided that it was time for me to learn how to write. "Beginning, middle, and end," she'd repeat over and over. "Conflict and resolution. That is what will make people want to read your stories." I'd e-mail her word documents with seven-or-eight-chapter stories that I'd written in one or two days, and she would send them back with comments typed in red. "You can't just sit down and write a book series," she told me one day, and I responded, with all my fifth-grade innocence, "Well, why not?" Later she told me that was the moment she knew that I was going to be a writer.
Whenever I wrote papers for school, she insisted on reading them first and giving me feedback. At the time I hated her for it. I'd write what I thought was a perfectly good essay, and she would tear it apart. One day she told me, exasperated, "You write better than anyone I know. You're just not applying yourself." I wrote the essay because I had to, but afterwards I hid in my room and cried. When you're a kid, after all, you can't tell the difference between healthy criticism, of which I had plenty, and real disdain for your writing.
Meanwhile, I fell in love with my dad's camcorder. I started making tapes on my own, which I called The Avery Udell TV Show. It was awful, it was stupid, and it was my favorite thing to do. Every single one of these shows was improvised; the thought of filming one of my scripts never crossed my mind until the day my dad suggested, "Hey, why don't we think about what we're filming before we film it?" There was a novel idea. I started doing re-takes, but still didn't edit--that would come later. I figured out how to dub music over the tapes and began making fake music videos. When I look back on this, I can't help but laugh because most of my music videos told better, more concise stories than my "TV shows."
When I got to high school I wrote fanfiction and, fearing that my parents would find out, never posted it. I wrote about my then-favorite band, the Jonas Brothers. I wrote about Harry Potter. I wrote about Twilight, and--when I got a little older--Red Jumpsuit Apparatus and The Academy Is... and Selena Gomez. I wrote and wrote and wrote, and I often got in trouble for writing too much. "Go outside!" became a frequently-issued suggestion/command in my house, right up there with "Get off the computer!" As I'm sitting here with a laptop writing this now you can rest assured that I did not, in fact, get off the computer. Instead I began showing my parents my stories, and at first they'd laugh (and, honestly, I can't blame them) but then my mom, with her usual sky's-the-limit attitude, pointed out "You know, if you just changed one or two things, this would be a much better story." Whenever and wherever she told me to change something, I always did. And when I got to college, I was thankful for her instruction after reading some of my classmates' papers. There are many things upon which my mom and I still disagree, but the importance of knowing how to write has never been one of them.
When I look back on my childhood, it's not too hard to see why I ended up going to Interlochen. I was always encouraged to be creative. My dad fueled my creativity by acting in every one of my God-awful home movies with me, by dressing up in whatever ridiculous costumes I asked him to wear and improvising rap songs on the spot just to make me laugh, by acting out scenes from Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter to my heart's content, and by taking me to see whatever silly movies I wanted to see. (Dad, if you read this, I'm sorry about Twilight. Really, I am. I hope seeing American Sniper made up for it. I know it didn't, but I'm trying, okay?) And my mom encouraged me to be creative and productive. It's really to her credit that I know how to write at all; I like to think that at least some of it is innate talent, but I know far better. Without her criticism I might still write like certain fanfics I've seen--all bad punctuation and worse storylines--and for that I am grateful, no matter how painful it was to hear critique at the time.
When I hear my friends talk now I realize just how lucky I am. Some people would've killed to go to Interlochen, but their parents wouldn't have let them because it's "a waste of money" to get an arts-based education. Some of my friends at McDaniel would've killed to major in art, theater or music, but their parents pressured them into psychology, business, or pre-law because it was "more practical" that way. One of my classmates told me she wanted to be a painter, not an art therapist, but her parents convinced her that she'd never make any money and had better do something "real" with her college years.
I know that their parents all meant well and did what they did out of love, but I can't help but feel spoiled sometimes, because my parents chose to show their love in a different way. They told me, from the very beginning, that if writing was my passion I should follow it. To this day my mother actively encourages me to apply for professional writing jobs instead of the "more practical" route of administration or State work - both of which I could, with my background in communications and writing, theoretically do. My parents have always been, and always will be, my biggest fans and greatest supporters. Whether it's patiently hearing out my half-baked screenplay ideas or driving me to workshops with professional filmmakers, they are always there for me in whatever ways I need them to be. They were right there with me when I wrote my first script about feeding my pet rabbit, and they were right there with me when I won Audience Choice at my first-ever film festival. And should a miracle occur and I ever make it to the Oscars, they will be right there with me then, too.
So if anyone out there is wondering what a difference support from your family can make, now you know.
I know that their parents all meant well and did what they did out of love, but I can't help but feel spoiled sometimes, because my parents chose to show their love in a different way. They told me, from the very beginning, that if writing was my passion I should follow it. To this day my mother actively encourages me to apply for professional writing jobs instead of the "more practical" route of administration or State work - both of which I could, with my background in communications and writing, theoretically do. My parents have always been, and always will be, my biggest fans and greatest supporters. Whether it's patiently hearing out my half-baked screenplay ideas or driving me to workshops with professional filmmakers, they are always there for me in whatever ways I need them to be. They were right there with me when I wrote my first script about feeding my pet rabbit, and they were right there with me when I won Audience Choice at my first-ever film festival. And should a miracle occur and I ever make it to the Oscars, they will be right there with me then, too.
So if anyone out there is wondering what a difference support from your family can make, now you know.
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