Aging My Way
Laurie Lisle, in her memoir Word for Word said perhaps one of the reasons she wanted to be a reporter is because she could ask anyone about almost anything.
I remember responding to that question a few times in the same way. Of course, it went much deeper than that, with the most important thing being that I wanted to write, and I wanted to be read.
That’s why I blog. It’s why I wrote Travels with Maggie, why I am the staff writer for Story Circle Networks’ journal, and why, occasionally these days, I still submit articles to a variety of publications.
And if that isn’t enough, I fill a page or two in my personal journal most days.
I write because to not do so would be to not breath. I consider myself blessed to have found this passion in my life when I was 25. It happened about 2 a.m. in the morning when I couldn’t sleep, and for some unknown reason found myself getting up and writing about an incident that had moved me deeply the day before.
The only thing I had ever written before this were high school English assignments, which I didn’t particularly enjoy. But I had been, from the time I first learned the alphabet, a bookworm. I read every opportunity I got, from the words on a cereal box to Tolstoy’s War and Peace. In my mind, writers were a breed so far above me that I couldn’t picture being among them.
In fact, it was a dozen or more years after I was supporting myself as a newspaper writer before I finally realized I was actually one of them. And even longer after that before I could actually call myself a writer.
It has now been 58 years since that devious writing bug infected me — and changed the whole trajectory of my life.
I’ve come to love that bug with all my heart. And I’m still writing and hope to be right up until the day I die.
Pat Bean is a retired award-winning journalist who lives in Tucson with her canine companion, Scamp. She is an avid reader, an enthusiastic birder, the author of Travels with Maggie available on Amazon (Free on Kindle Unlimited), is always searching for life’s silver lining, and these days aging her way – and that’s usually not gracefully.
Pat Bean's blog 
I remember as a youngster reading a book I got from the family mahogqany bookcase and reading “The Twisted Claw”, It seened it took me forever to finishm butI became enamored with the characters, It was nany years later that I learned it was a Hardy Boys Mystery. I tink Iread every Sci-Fi book in the Hagh School library. I was over 50 when I started the Everywhere Book Series and it took me 5 years to publish From Here to Everywhere and I got such good reviews I kept on writing. I am glad I have such a great sister in Pat.