How I Came To Be A Writer – Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

HOW I CAME TO BE
A WRITER
To anyone who ever wanted to write a book, but
especially to my mother, who had enough faith in me to
save my early stories.

CONTENTS

Contents
.................................................................................................................
1

Foreword
.................................................................................................................
2

1. Starting from Scratch

.................................................................................................................
3

2. A Bubble Bursts
.................................................................................................................
16

3. The Long Climb

.................................................................................................................
24

4. The Things That Make Up Me

.................................................................................................................
57

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How I Came To Be A Writer – Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

5. From Paragraphs to Chapters

.................................................................................................................
70

6. Through an Editor’s Eyes

.................................................................................................................
83

7. Taking Time
.................................................................................................................
92

8. The Spark
.................................................................................................................
105

9. The Rock in My Shoe

.................................................................................................................
105

FOREWORD
This book will not tell you how to write. It is about my own
beginnings – successes and failures, reviews and rejection slips – things
that mark the stages in a writer’s life.

Every author has his own story. In some ways the stories are
different and in some ways they are the same. If you want to write – if
you are bursting with things that need putting down on paper –
remember that the story of how you became with a writer has already
begun.

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How I Came To Be A Writer – Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

Phyllis Reynolds Naylor at eight years old

1. STARTING FROM SCRATCH

The idea of being a writer never entered my mind when I was

growing up. An occupation, I knew, was something that took years of
preparation and hard work, and writing was simply too much fun. So I
decided to become a teacher, an actress, an opera singer, a tap dancer,
or a missionary.

My mother did not like the thought of my being an actress and

told me I would probably faint under the bright lights. She also did not
like the idea of my being a tap dancer, so I was never allowed to take

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lessons. Missionaries, as everyone knew, were sometimes eaten alive,

so that left teaching and opera singing. Writing, which was the thing I
loved most in the world, was only my hobby.

My parents had always liked books, and they knew a good story
when they heard one. My mother, in fact, used to scare her own six
brothers and sisters witless with stories she made up, and she was
scolded once for telling her youngest brother that he was not really one
of the family at all, having been found in a ditch by the side of the road.
In college, Mother and Dad acted in plays together, and enjoyed the
role of Portia and Shylock in The Merchant of Venice. So when we
three children came along, we were born into a home that loved stories.

When I arrived, the Depression was raging, but the picture of me

in my baby book, dressed in hand-me-down clothes and shoes that were
much too large, has this caption in my mother’s handwriting: “Phyllis
Dean, a bright, happy little soul.” The truth is, I was too young to mind
being poor. I remember the two checked dresses I wore to
kindergarten, one red, the other blue, and Mother telling me that if I
alternated colors, it would seem as though I had more clothes than I
did. I simply thought how clever of Mother this was.

I remember her crying when she broke our fever thermometer,

and again when my older sister spilled the vanilla, but it didn’t
particularly concern me. And when Mother had to take in the
neighbors’ laundry in order to help pay our bills, and it was my duty
and my sister’s to return the finished clothes in a basket, I do remember
Norma insisting that we take them back after dark, which I thought
ridiculous, since I wasn’t afraid of being seen, but I was afraid of the
dark.

One of the reasons I didn’t know we were poor, however, was

that we had books. Not many, but we heard them read over and over
again – Egermeier’s Bible Story Book, two volumes of Grimm’s Fairy
Tales, the complete works of Mark Twain, a set of the Collier’s
Encyclopedia, a small collection of Sherlock Holmes books in red
covers that the mice had nibbled, and a book with pictures of hell in it –

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demons cutting people in half and dousing their heads in boiling oil. I
don’t know what happened to that book, but I was glad when it
disappeared.

These were not just books to read, I’m afraid, but they were also
our toys. The volumes of the Collier’s Encyclopedia, stood on end,
formed the wall of the first floor of a dollhouse; the Mark Twains
became the upstairs; and the Sherlock Holmes books formed the attic.
Whenever we stretched bedsheets across the backs of chairs to play
train, a good heavy encyclopedia volume held the sheet of place, and
books were the tunnels through which my little brother sent his cars
spinning. When evening time came and it was time for my father to
read another chapter from The Prince and the Pauper, no one
complained that the dollhouse or tunnels had to be dismantled. Even
now it bothers me to see, in someone’s study, rows of pristine books
that look as though they have never been opened, much less read and
treasured – and certainly never used for holding a bedsheet in place.

As we grew older, our book collection got bigger, and Mother

often brought home books from the library. She read to us every night,
almost until we were old enough to go out on dates, though we would
never have admitted this to anyone. When my sister considered herself
too old to be read to any longer, she would sit at the dining room table
doing her homework while Mother read to me on the couch. She was
listening, nonetheless. And when I decided that I was far too
sophisticated for books such as The Little White Bed That Ran Away, I
too would retreat to my arithmetic problems in the dining room. But
when I heard those familiar words, “Thump, bump, bump; down the
stairs came the little white bed,” I would sneak over to the couch beside
my brother, John, “just to see the pictures.” I can still hear John’s
shrieks of laughter at the antics of Toad and his motor car in The Wind
in the Willows – and remember the drama in my mother’s voice as she
read of the tribulations of the Israelites on their way to the Promised
Land.

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Little did anyone know that the first story composed by the angelic girl on
the right would be about cutting off somebody’s head

Our parents often sang to us, too, and many of their songs were
really stories: “The Preacher and the Bear,” another about a ship going
down at sea, and even one about a homeless little girl whose mother
was dead. It began:

Out in this cold world alone,

Wandering about on the street…

and it ended with a vision of the child’s mother looking down on her
from heaven. It always made me cry. “Make somebody find the little
girl,” I frequently begged my mother, and she would add a verse of her
own at the end.

Some of the best nights were the ones when my father did the
reading. He could imitate all kinds of voices – the runaway Jim’s in
Huckleberry Finn, Injun Joe’s in Tom Sawyer, and Marley’s ghost in A
Christmas Carol. And when Mother read “Little Orphant Annie” from
James Whitcomb Riley’s Child-Rhymes, ending with “Er the Gobble-
uns’ll git you/If you Don’t Watch Out” (at which point she grabbed us),
our hearts pounded. We worshiped those books that had the power to
make us shiver. I was never very curious about the authors, though. It
was the story that was important.

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This is my mother, father, my big sister, Norma, and me, before my brother,
John, was born.

As a small child, I began kindergarten in midyear, since my

birthday was in January, and consequently, I was not old enough for
first grade when September came. As I watched my friends being
escorted, beaming, to the first-grade classroom down the hall, I didn’t
know why I couldn’t go. All I knew was that I had been sitting in the
circle a very long time without hearing my name called. Finally,
fidgeting about, I put my feet up on an empty chair next to me. The
harried teacher, in passing, gave my legs a slap and told me to put them
down. For years I believed that I had been kept them back because I put
my feet on the chair.

That teacher was replaced by another, however, who used to seat

herself in the middle of the floor each afternoon and invite us to come
to her and “make up a story.” She would write down what we said and
let us take it home to show to our parents. I don’t remember any of the
stories I composed, but I do remember her telling me to give someone
else a chance, that I had had quite enough turns for one day.

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Someone gave my big sister a large chocolate Easter rabbit and didn’t give me
anything. So while she was at school one day, I ate the whole thing. This picture
was taken before she found out. Later she cut off my hair.

My mother, however, saved the first one I brought home,

probably in case I should ever need to show it to a psychiatrist:

Once upon a time there was a little boy and a little girl who lived
on the woods with their mother. One day the little boy said, “Mother, I
want an apple.” The mother said, “Okay.” The boy reached into the box
and the mother closed the lid on him and cut off his head and set him
out in the yard and tied a rag around his neck to keep his head on. The
little girl came home. She cried a lot. She sneaked out and pasted his
head back on with magic paste. Then she put her brother in her boy
friend’s house. She grew up and married her boy friend. The mother
died. The end.

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Since these were Depression years, my father bought boys’ clothes for me because
he thought they would last longer. Here I am in a boy’s cap, coat, socks, and
shoes. The smile is a fake. I’m thinking of murder.

This story, I discovered years later, sounds suspiciously like “The

Juniper Tree,” by the brother’s Grimm, so not only my first writing
effort gory, it was plagiarism at that.

I could hardly wait until I could read and write my own books,
and when it was finally my turn for first grade, I entered with high
expectations. For some reason, however, I couldn’t make sense of
reading for a time. I would sit with a small group of children while the
teacher turned over large sheets of paper tacked onto an easel.
Sentences had been written on each page in black crayon, and they
seemed to have something to do with the pictures in the right-hand
corners – a cat or a dog or a tree in autumn. One by one the other
children read aloud those black marks on white paper while I sat mute
and unhappy. I couldn’t describe my disappointment. How did the
others know, I wondered, that those marks said, “See the dog run?” One
day I decided that perhaps reading was just making stories up. So the
next time the teacher pointed to the words, I raised my hand and
eagerly launched into a story about a vicious dog attacking a cat

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beneath a tree in autumn. The teacher looked at me sadly and shook her
head, and I knew that I still had not discovered the magic secret.

By the time I was ten, my favorite hobby was writing little books. My
spelling was, and still is, unremarkable.
I don’t know just when it was that reading “clicked” with me, but
once I learned, I could not get enough of it. The advanced reading
books always seemed to have the most exciting stories, and how I

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wanted the class to hurry through one so we could get to the others
before the year was out! So many stories, so many books, and so little
time to read them all.

“Penny and the Mystery of the Secret Relics”

By the time I reached third grade, reading was my favorite
subject. In my school, the library consisted of a truck that came around
every few weeks. The driver would carry in box after box of books and

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line them up on the window ledges in the school corridor. Then, one
class at a time, we went out into the hall and chose some. I was
disappointed when our class was the last to go, because there were so
few good books left.

Like many children who love to write, I wrote poems for all
occasions. And like most parents, mine tucked these little verses away
in the keepsake trunk. There are certain words and phrases that bring
smiles of approval from grown-ups, words such as love, sunlight,
flowers, church, and prayer. These words are real winners. That’s why
I was complimented on the following poem, composed on a visit to my
grandparents’ home when I was nine:

THIS FARM IN MARYLAND

I love this farm in Maryland,

It’s full of fun and cheer,
There is one thing that makes it so:
The people living here.

I love the garden growing here,

The sunlight is so bright,
I love the sound of toads and birds,
Chirping in the night.

I love the flowers growing here,

Red, green, and blue,
And all the pretty rocks and birds,
Full of different hues.

I love the little pond here,

With lilies resting here,
And pine trees all around it,
Refreshed with summer air.
I love the church and the pastor,
And the people attending there,

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I love our little services,

Full of praise and song and prayer.

This state is very colorful,

Green trees against red sand,
O, if I could but stay here,
This place in Maryland.

I dedicated it, of course, to my grandparents (my grandfather

himself was the pastor), and my grandparents, naturally, thought it
splendid.

Not all of my early poems and stories were so sweet and

sentimental, however. Here is another:

I know a bad boy,

That will not mind his mother,
But when he is very bad,
He kicks his baby brother.

I began to be “on call” as an impromptu writer. In fifth grade, the

teachers suddenly decided to throw a surprise party for the principal,
and I was asked if I would mind staying in during recess to compose a
birthday poem. I could write one in twenty minutes, couldn’t I? Twenty
minutes and one stomachache later, I had produced eight lines that
were read over the microphone in the assembly room.

I was now writing little books of my own. Each day I would rush
home from school to see if the wastebasket held any discarded paper
that had one side blank. We were not allowed to use new sheets of
paper for our writing and drawing, so books had to be done on used
paper. I would staple these sheets together and sometimes paste a strip
of colored paper over the staples to give it the appearance of a bound
book. Then I would grandly begin my story, writing the words at the
top of each page and drawing an accompanying picture at the bottom.
Sometimes I typed the story before stapling the pages. And sometimes I
even cut old envelopes in half and pasted them on the inside covers as

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pockets, slipping an index card in each one, like a library book, so I

could check it out to friends and neighbors. I was the author, illustrator,
printer, blinder, and librarian, all in one.

I wrote about witches and little Dutch boys and animated fire
engines. I wrote a series of mystery books about gorgeous girl named
Penny who was always being rescued by her boyfriend, and, because I
had just learned to draw lace, somewhere in every “Penny” book, my
heroine lost her clothes just so I could draw her lacy underthings. I
wrote of elves and fairies and talking refrigerators, and when my
mother explained the facts of life to me, I even wrote a book called
Manual for Pregnant Women, with illustrations by the author.

But I never considered myself “bookish.” There seemed to be

something decidedly unhealthy about people who sat around in garrets
fiddling with words instead of going out and living life in the flesh. I
liked to make all kinds of things, not just books. I enjoyed having a
finished product when I was through, whether it was a pot holder, a
wagon, a hose made of clay, or a poem. Summers were spent snitching
ice off the back of the ice truck, sliding down a grassy hill on pieces of
cardboard, building a clubhouse out of old coffin crates, and creating
our own Tarzan movie by leaping off fences and walls. Reading was
reserved for bedtime.

When I reached junior high school, I enjoyed writing stories

more than ever, but friends were important, too. Sometimes in the
evening, when I heard them calling out to me from the porch, I’d be
torn between wanting to stay in my room and write and wanting to be
with them. That was why I liked rainy nights and snowy weekends,
when I knew that no one would be going out and I could write
undisturbed.

When I was a freshman in high school, I first experienced a

classroom response to my writing. Our assignment was to write

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something original, either a poem or story, and read it loud. Because it

was December, I wrote a poem called “Christmas Shopping”:

It is now one week before Christmas;

I started my shopping last night;
I left as a young stylish woman,
And returned home looking a fright.
I’d put on my warmest clothing,
And after the kids had been kissed,
I frantically ran to the corner
To wait for the bus I’d just missed.
The doorways in town were all crowded
With thousands of women and men,
So, using my elbows as weapons,
I charged through the mob and fell in.
I saw what I wanted at counter four,
And waited, oh, so patiently!
But when the clerk asked, “Who is next, please?”
The lady behind shouted, “Me!”
I gave her my most ferocious look
To show I was horribly mad,
But sunk to my knees when I finally learned
That this shopper bought all that they had.
I had been in town for five hours,
And all of my presents were wrapped,
But in fighting my way to the exit,
My garter suddenly snapped.
I limped on out to the sidewalk.
No one would see it out there -
My nose was running right down to my chin
And the wind blew the pins from my hair.
The bus was just rounding the corner,
The whole town was there to get on.
And in plowing my way to the center
I discovered my strength almost gone.
I smiled a sweet, “That’s quite all right,”
To an ox who just flattened my toe,

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And stopped to dig out a baby

I had trampled head down in the snow.
I felt the warmth from the bus door
And my tiredness started to ease,
But as I lifted one foot to get on,
The driver called out, “Next bus, please.”
I staggered back to the sidewalk,
And solemnly wiped back the tear,
And I prayed as I leaned ‘gainst the storefront,
Thank God, this just comes once a year!

When I read the poem, bursts of laughter drowned me out, and I

had to wait to be heard. Even the teacher was laughing. But my joy was
short-lived, because she called me up to her desk afterward and said,
“Phyllis, are you quite sure you didn’t copy that poem from a
magazine?” It was certainly worth an A, she told me, but she was
adding a minus in case I really hadn’t written it myself. Perhaps I
should have taken this as a compliment, but I was hurt that she didn’t
trust me.

I spent my time writing skits for my youth group at church,

poems for birthdays and anniversaries, and funny letters to fond
relatives, with no idea that my first published story was just around the
corner.

2. A BUBBLE BURSTS

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When I was sixteen, a former Sunday School teacher, Arlene

Stevens Hall, wrote to me. She said that she was now the editor of a
church school paper, that she remembered how much I liked stories,
and wondered if I would care to write one for her.

I was delighted and began thinking about what I would write. I

remembered reading something in the newspaper about a baseball
player who lost some fingers on his right hand, and this gave me the
idea for “Mike’s Hero,” as baseball story. I typed it up and sent it off:

MIKE’S HERO
by Phyllis Reynolds

“That’s all for today, boys,” called Mr. Evans as he climbed off
the bleachers and walked over to the boys. “If you play that well for our
tournament, we’ll win for sure.”

The boys picked up their bats and crowded around the coach.
“Do you really think so?” asked Mike, as he pushed back his red hair.

“Sure we will,” answered Jack, who played second base. “We’ve

got the best cub scout baseball team in Galesburg. Don’t you think so,
Mr. Evans?”

The coach smiled as he looked down at his team. “We’ll see

who’s really the best when we play the big game. Now you had better
hurry home. We practiced a half-hour overtime this afternoon.
Remember, Wednesday afternoon for our next practice. I’ll see you
then.”

“Okay, Coach,” shouted the boys. “Good-bye.”

Mike brushed the dust from his uniform and waited for Ted.

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“Whew!” said the dark-haired boy as he walked up to Mike.

“That really was a workout! I’m hungry as a bear.”

“So am I,” said Mike. “Mother said she was going to bake some
raisin cookies. Stop in a minute and I’ll give you a handful.”

The thought of raisin cookies made the boys hurry. As they

neared the busy corner of Barton and Jackson streets, the boys’ happy
expression changed. Little two-year-old Patty, sister of one of the
baseball players on the opposite team, was running toward the street.
Ted yelled and Mike started running. Ted followed. Patty ran into the
street just as a car swung around the corner. Mike dashed in front of the
car, pushing Patty to safety, but the auto hit Mike. There were screams
and cries, slamming of brakes, the shouting of directions, and Mike was
rushed to the hospital.

The red-hair boy lay unconscious for hours. At times he

mumbled a few words about baseball or let out a frightened cry to
Patty. It was a week before visitors were allowed to see him. Then
Mother and Dad came every day, of course, and Patty’s mother came
thanking Mike again and again for saving Patty’s life. Many others
came too: Rev. John Martin, the minister; the driver of the auto, whose
name was Mr. Murphy; and even the coach and the team.

Mike would not be able to play baseball for a long time. He had
injured the nerves in his right hand. It would be some time before he
could again use it well.

Mike did not say much to anyone. He tried to smile and joke with
the gang. The team sent him candy, books, and even a portable radio so
he could listen to the ball games. Mr. Martin came frequently to sit by
his bed and talk to him. Mr. Murphy came often. Coach Evans and the
team came once a week.

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My first story was published when I was sixteen. It was written without effort, with
scarcely any revision at all. I wouldn’t even have to work for a living. What a life!

Mike had had his heart set on playing with a big league someday.
His baseball hero was Dick Burnhart, who played in one of America’s
biggest leagues. Now Mike’s dreams of becoming a second Burnhart
were ruined.

Tuesday came, the day of the cub scout tournament. Ted had
promised to come to the hospital right after the game and tell Mike
which team had won. Mike lay on his back, watching the ceiling. He
wished Ted would come.

He heard the nurse in the hall and sat up. Ted came into the room.
“Did we win?” asked Mike anxiously.

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Ted smiled and laid down his cap. He shook his head. “Nope.
They were better than we thought. It was pretty close, though,” he
added cheerfully.

Mike lay back on his pillow.

“That’s too bad,” he said sadly.

“Gee, Mike, don’t feel bad. You know that we could have won if
you had been there. We’ll play them again next year and you’ll be able
to catch for us.”

Weeks later Mike was taken home from the hospital. He was thin
and white. School had begun but Mike was not able to go.

“He needs a long rest,” the doctor said. “He would get along
better if he were not so unhappy. I wish I could think of something to
cheer him up.”

One morning Mike’s mother came into his bedroom and woke
him up. “I have a surprise for you, Son,” she said. “Let me help you
wash your face and comb your hair. Then you will have some visitors.”

“Who are they, Mom?” he coaxed. “Please tell me.”

But Mother just smiled. When Mike was ready, Mother left the
room and returned with four men. First came Coach Evans, then Mr.
Murphy and Mr. Martin, and then - no, it couldn’t be, but it was - Dick
Burnhart, Mike’s baseball star!

Mike’s eyes shone and he sat up quickly. “Dick Burnhart,” he

cried. “I never thought I’d meet you!”

“I never thought I would meet you either, Mike. I don’t get a

chance to meet heroes every day.” Dick sat down on the edge of the
bed.

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“Heroes,” exclaimed Mike. “You’re the hero, Mr. Burnhart.”

“No,” said the famous man. “I’m just a ballplayer with lots of
luck and practice. You’re the hero. You saved a little girl’s life. That’s
why I came to see you. Mr. Evans told me all about you. I’m proud od
you.”

“Proud of me?” asked Mike in surprise.

“Sure,” Dick said. “Besides, you’re going to take my place

someday, and I decided I’d better meet you.

Mike’s eyes fell. “But my hand,” he said. “How can I take your
place?”

Dick held out his own right hand. “Look,” he said.

“Why, there are three fingers missing. How do you play ball?”

“I lost my fingers while I was working on a machine, Mike. I

thought I could never play ball again. But I wanted to very badly, so I
practiced and practiced and kept trying. Sometimes I played poorly and
other times I played well. But I kept trying and practicing until I got on
the big league team.”

“Gee, Mr. Burnhart, that’s well! Do you suppose I could learn?

I’ll really try.”

“Sure, Mike. Anyone can succeed if he tries hard enough and

long enough. As soon as you are able to go outside, start practicing
again. I brought you my catcher’s mitt. You can keep it.” Dick rose and
started toward the door. “Good-bye now, Mike. Hurry and get well
soon.”

Mike hugged the catcher’s mitt happily. “You bet I’ll be well,
Dick,” he said firmly. “I’m going to take your place someday.”

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The illustration for “Mike’s Hero” that appeared with the story in
“Boy’s and Girl’s Comrade.”

It is embarrassing now to read this story, because it’s not a very

good one. There are too many things wrong with it to list them all, but
it’s too sentimental, for one. The characters don’t talk like real people,
for another. And it’s not only quite a coincidence that Mike hurt the
same hand as his baseball idol, but also implausible that, having
worshiped Dick Burnhart for so long, Mike didn’t even know that the
man had three fingers missing.

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Still, the story was the best that I could do at the time, and it was
written expressly for the Sunday School market. Because church school
papers paid so little, they were always looking for material, and a few
weeks later, I received a check for $4.67. I was thrilled. Imagine being
paid for something that was so much fun! Where was the work? Where
was the struggle? The words came effortlessly, and I simply wrote
them down! What a life!

Send me more, my teacher-turned-editor said. So I wrote all

kinds of stories and poems and sent them off: poems for Halloween,
Thanksgiving, and Christmas; adventure stories of dramatic rescue;
tales of contests won and contests lost; and epics about unkind children
who saw the error of their ways. Most of these stories were accepted,
and when editing was needed, my kind teacher did it herself. Her
criticisms were always gentle and accompanied by encouraging words.

Why, I began to wonder, should I waste my talent on a church

school paper when there were dozens and dozens of beautiful slick
magazines out there just calling me? Why not write for Children’s
Playmate, Jack and Jill, Highlights for Children, Boy’s Life, and
Seventeen?

I spent hours writing up stories with cute titles bound to win an

editor’s heart: “Mrs. Wiggin’s Walrus,” “Willie, the Window Glass,”
“Snipper McSnean and His Flying Machine,” Barnabas the Beagle,”
“Danny the Drainpipe,” and “Miranda, the Musical Mouse.” Then I
wrote another batch of exotic stories for teenagers: “The Cobra and
Carol,” “The Silent Treatment,” “The Red Comb,” and “Destination,
Trouble.” I typed them neatly and sent them off with stamped, self-
addressed return envelopes to magazines all over the country. Then I
sat back and waited for the money to roll in.

The first thing I discovered was that unknown editors did not
reply as promptly as my loving former teacher. Weeks went by,
sometimes months, before I began to hear from any of them.

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The second thing I discovered was that the stories came back
with printed rejection slips, not page-long letters of apology with
encouragement to try again.

And the third thing I discovered was that all those big, beautiful
magazines had been calling to someone else, not to me, because every
story winged its way home. For two whole years I sent out stories and
for two years every single one of them came back.

I decided that I had the sort of talent only a Sunday School

teacher could love and felt terribly embarrassed. How the editors must
have laughed at my stories! They had probably shown them around the
office as examples of just how dreadful stories could be. I decided to
end my short writing career before it got any worse. I wrote to all the
editors who were still holding manuscripts of mine and asked that they
be returned immediately. I was going to take them all out in the
backyard and burn them. Never again would I humiliate myself in this
way.

All the manuscripts but one came back, and in its place came a
check for sixty dollars. It was for a story called “The Mystery of the
Old Stone Well,” and it wasn’t even a particularly good story.

I was amazed. From the time I had sent it out until I heard from
the editor, I’d thought of all kinds of things in it that needed changing.
But if I could get sixty dollars for a story, why not try again-with the
very best stories I could write? I did, and five months later, I sold a
story to still another editor who had never heard of me before.

My dream of fame and fortune had vanished along with all the
money I had spent on stamps and envelops over the last two years; they
were replaced with a new respect for the business of writing. I merely
had one toe in the door, I knew, and had not even begun to climb the
stairs.

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3. THE LONG CLIMB

Slowly, with many rejection slips along the way, I began selling
stories to still more church school papers. Some editors were very
sympathetic and helpful. They wrote little notes on the printed rejection
forms, telling me specifically what it was that made them return my
story. Others plainly considered me a curse, I’m sure of it. They
seemed to delight in returning a manuscript only days after I’d mailed
it, with nothing more than a piece of paper on which was printed the
single word “Sorry.”

Here is a sample of correspondence from one editor who never

bought a single story of mine:

First letter:
As I see it, you haven’t caught on how to write stories. Here you
have a fine lad, drifting with the stream, and someone comes along and
pulls him to shore. He doesn’t even have to stroke. That doesn’t make a
story, and I want a story, not an incident or a simple piece of well-done
narrative.

Second letter:
Always glad to hear from you. Send manuscripts any time. But
I’ll never buy any unless you learn the basics of a story. There must be
a problem and the main character must struggle with the problem and
solve it - not some rich uncle, a good pal like the girl here, not an act of
God, not a coincidence, not a fond mother, not an anonymous letter,
etc., etc.

Third letter:
Well, I’ve read a lot of your stories - writing, I should say,
because they aren’t stories. Really, I hate to see you waste so much
energy on writings that miss the point.

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How I Came To Be A Writer – Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

On the other hand, here is the kind of acceptance note that

cheered me on:

Dear Phyllis:
Regarding One Small Part of Living: Excellent! I love you. More,
please!

My writings were still not very original. The plots were, for the
most part, predictable. Mothers were always soft-spoken and
understanding, fathers were always fair, grandparents were kindly
people who sat about with shawls over their shoulders, and children
were always getting into trouble, and sorry about it when it was over.

I had started out with adventure stories for the nine-to-twelve set,
and soon decided I wanted to write for the teenage market as well. I
wrote about slum life and floods and romances gone awry, and an
editor suggested very kindly that I might like to choose one age group
and stick with it. “Most writers do that,” she said. It was my first sad
indication that whatever the really professional writers did, I didn’t.

I felt most in touch with myself, however, when I took on the

viewpoints of many different characters. Perhaps it was a way of
combining past, present, and future, of hanging onto the child I was at
seven, yet practicing what I would be like at seventy. This was one area
where I disagreed with an editor, and I went on eventually to write for
adults as well as preschoolers.

I married when I was eighteen, and enrolled in the local junior

college. After graduation, I moved to Chicago with my husband, where
he continued work on his Ph.D. While he was in school, I worked for
several years as a clinical secretary in the university hospital. Then,
because I had passed a state examination, I worked for six months as a
third-grade teacher. My husband suggested books I might to read, and I
read mist of the ones in his collection.

My private education began with Thackeray’s Vanity Fair,

followed by several books by Dickens. There was War and Peace and

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How I Came To Be A Writer – Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

the plays of Shakespeare, the collected works of Sigmund Freud, and

The Canterbury Tales by Chaucer. We would read to each other from
Balzac, Samuel Butler, or George Santayana.

For several months I put myself on a steady diet of nineteenth-

century novels by Dostoevsky, Flaubert, Tolstoy, and Zola. Then I read
more modern books by Sinclair Lewis, Upton Sinclair, John Steinbeck,
and William Faulkner. Because there weren’t school assignments, I
could fling myself into the books, not having to worry about outlines
and summaries and underlining the major themes. I could even read the
last chapter first, if I wanted. But always, when I wasn’t working and
wasn’t reading, I wrote.

My writing was so far from sounding like Tolstoy or Faulkner

that it’s a wonder I wrote at all. But I was beginning to glimpse the
possibilities in writing the unexpected. What if a mother was not soft-
spoken and a father was not fair? Why should children always be the
ones at fault? What if grandfathers had something else on their minds
besides warm weather and woolens?

FOR THOSE WHO THINK YOUNG

Back in 1920, Grandpa Grinager was known as the cat’s pajamas.
Today he might have been called a swinger, except that he was sixty-
nine, not sixteen, and had arthritis of the knees or something.

He was far from senile. Every morning he did his exercises – no

deep-knee bends, to be sure, but he performed a few calisthenics and
managed a push-up or two if the weather was dry. Then he went
downstairs and fried an egg, the only thing he’d learned to cook since
Grandma Grinager died, and usually finished off breakfast with store-
bought pie.

After that his day consisted of going down to the drugstore,

admiring the pretty girls, listening to a ball game, or doing a bit of
gardening. Then he’d change clothes and go down to the Chinese-
American restaurant for supper of go over to the Fifth Street for

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How I Came To Be A Writer – Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

spaghetti. And finally, he’d round up the evening with a good detective
story.

This, however, was all BJR – Before Jim and Rita – ages sixteen
and thirteen respectively. Meg, Gramp’s daughter, persuaded him to
move in with her and Ralph and the children, and it had seemed like a
good idea.

And so he came from Connecticut Baltimore and was installed in

a little room all his own near the front, “where he could watch the cars
go by,” as Meg put it. And that’s about all he did. The family accepted
him as one accepts a thirteenth-century lamp and treated him
accordingly.

“Good grief, Gramps,” said Rita when she found him walking
about the house in his bare feet. “You want to get pneumonia of the
liver or something?” And after hearing this five or six times, Grandpa
Grinager decided maybe there was a pain down there somewhere; so he
put on the wool slipper-socks Rita had made him for Christmas.

“C’mon, Gramps, let’s go for a drive,” young Jim would say,

taking his grandfather’s elbow as he ushered down to the car. Then
they’d drive out in the country to see all the peaceful brown cows
eating peaceful green grass, and Grandpa Grinager would wonder that
people in Baltimore did for excitement, anyway. He’d end up falling
asleep and Jim would figure it had been too much for him. So the next
time they’d skip the cows and concentrate on cornfields, which Gramps
hoped never to see again as long as he lived.

Sometimes the family would take Gramps to dinner. They passed

up the pizza parlors and the chop-suey joints and the shish-kebab and
took him to a dreary little place called Mrs. Ritter’s Kitchen, where the
most exciting thing on the menu was meat loaf. They worried about his
digestion and even had him wondering if lemon meringue and
sauerkraut were too much for a man his age.

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How I Came To Be A Writer – Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

At church on Sunday morning, Gramps would stand outside with

Rita before the service, and all her friends would ask if he thought it
would rain. Grandpa Grinager didn’t know, didn’t care, and began to
wonder if the younger generation mistook him for a barometer.

And just when he’d been waiting all week to watch the Miss
American pageant on television, he discovered that the young people
were monopolizing the TV that night and had thoughtfully bought him
a book of crossword puzzles.

“Creepers, Kathy, he’s practically seventy!” Rita said to her girl

friend. “He needs rest! Turn the TV down!”

And so Gramps, enjoying the strains of the combo that came

drifting into his bedroom, heard the music cut short and promptly fell
asleep out of sheer boredom.

Something, he decided, had to be done. He could practically feel

himself shriveling up, from his ankles to his elbows, and bones that had
never hurt before were hurting now. He was even getting pains in his
false teeth.

Obviously, he had to change his image. He could always buy a

green felt hat and a yellow vest. He could take karate lessons or join a
scuba class at the Y. He could even elope with the church secretary and
create the biggest scandal since the minister’s cat gave birth in the
belfry. But as it turned out, nothing quite so drastic was needed.

It was a fine Saturday morning. When Gramps got out of bed, he

decided it would be a lot more fun to do push-ups in his underwear than
in his clothes; so he pulled down the blinds and did his calisthenics.
Afterward, he sat down in the rocking chair to decide whether to walk
over to the park or the courthouse, and covered himself with a quilt
while he thought about it. He’d just decided to go to the Pancake
House, instead, for a stack of strawberry pancakes when Rita tapped on
the door and stuck her head inside.

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How I Came To Be A Writer – Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

“Your oat meal’s ready, Gramps,” she called.

“Don’t think I want any this morning, Rita,” he said, wondering

if he should tell her about the strawberry pancakes. But Rita was gone;
so he closed his eyes again and wondered if maybe blueberry wouldn’t
taste better. Or pecan or peanut butter.

The illustration that accompanied “For Those Who Think Young.”

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How I Came To Be A Writer – Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

Rita, meanwhile, dashed into the kitchen, her eyes wide.

“Mother,” she cried, “he’s sitting there in his chair with a blanket
around him and the shades drawn and he doesn’t want to eat!”

The next thing Gramps knew, the family was gathered outside his
door and he heard Meg’s husband say, “What’s the matter with him?
You sure he’s breathing?”

“He won’t eat or anything!” Rita exclaimed. “He won’t even look
out the window.”

They all peeped in. Gramps didn’t move. He even tried holding
his breath and counting to fifteen. And when he got to twelve, he had
most wonderful idea. He almost chuckled out loud.

“Gramps,” said Meg, “wouldn’t you like to go out for a little air
this morning?”

Gramps tried not to laugh as he made his voice waver. “No, Meg,
I think I’ll just sit here in my chair today.”

“No oatmeal, Gramps? Can I bring you a tray?”

“No, I’m not hungry… nothing at all,” Grandpa Ginager replied,

wondering if they could hear this stomach rumbling beneath the
blanket. Pineapple. Pineapple pancakes. That would have been perfect.

What happened next was exactly what he predicted. The doctor

arrived. Gramps fully intended to let him in on his little joke, but Meg
hovered around the door, so he couldn’t.

“He’s fit as a fiddle, physically,” he heard the doctor tell her in

the hall. “Sometimes it’s just plain senility and they’re better off in a
nursing home. But if I were you I’d try to snap him out of it. The
trouble with Gramps is he thinks he’s too old to have any fun in life.
(Gramps almost chokes laughing.) You’ve got to convince him he’s

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How I Came To Be A Writer – Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

well and strong. Get him interested in bright, lively things. Persuade
him to go to new places, see new things. It’s worth a try.”

Good ole Doc,

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