At age 9, I started to keep a diary when we got our puppy, Duke, who is mentioned in my book, Pieces of a Life. So that was writing for fun with no outside influence. Grammar school in Oak Park involved a lot of writing assignments of one sort or another. That kind of writing, non-fiction, seemed easy. To me, fiction is more difficult.
I dabbled with writing short stories for many years. If you'd like to see them, I have a drawer of mostly unfinished ones! More often than not, I was using writing to help me figure out something or to vent my frustration, anger with someone. So it was a coping tool.
I remember having a birthday lunch with three close friends back in the mid-1980s. Someone questioned me rather sharply about the way I pronounced the word "calm", saying that my way was wrong. At that time, it was without the "l" sound. The other three women all agreed, but I was quite sure that I was correct. Language is my bailiwick. One of them called me later that day to say she had checked a dictionary. I was right. Today there is a secondary pronunciation, incidentally, with the "l" sound. Language is ever evolving.
I wrote a short story about the luncheon because it bothered me that we had had the disagreement - and especially when celebrating my birthday. It helps to put things in perspective. And perhaps that is why I wrote Pieces of a Life. It was a way to sort out my parents' lives and better understand them. I'm not sure I will ever complete that task, but at least I see them in more dimension today after reading diaries, an autobiography and looking through many pictures. So why do I write? Because that's where my heart is.
Interested in knowing more about my book? Go to sites.google.com/site/booksbydianepellettiere.
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