Tag Archives: beginning

Exactly When

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journalKylee, of Madison, Wisconsin, asked me, “How old were you when you knew you wanted to be a writer?”

As it happens I know exactly when. At the beginning of 1955 I decided to keep a diary. On January the First, I wrote, “Considering this a very important year in my life—the school musical, graduation, summer, first year of college, I thought it would be a good idea to record these events … because I wish to clarify my own thinking and ideas.”

The diary has long lists of books I was reading, as well as quotes I liked: “For words, like nature, half reveal and half conceal the soul within.” (Tennyson) The pages are full of my own wise thoughts, too. “Read Plato. Not bad.” It chronicles my seventeen-year-old efforts at writing, reading, my love of the theatre, and my crushes on girls. 

On March 28, 1955, I wrote: “Well, I finally said it out loud. I intend to stay with the theatre.  In the theatre one can do everything in the world—write, build and be anything or anybody … There is so much to write about.”

I had decided to become a writer, a playwright. From playwright to writer of books for young people is a whole other story. But March 28, 1955 was the day I knew I wanted to be a writer.

Where did the idea for Poppy come from?

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PoppyThomas, from West Newbury, Massachusetts, wrote to me and asked, “How did you come up with the idea for Poppy?”

Well, Thomas, I was living in Oregon, in the town of Corvallis. Wandering into a bookstore, something I like to do, I went to the bargain section, something I like to do even more.There I found a book—shame on me for not remembering title or author—which was written by a naturalist. It seems that in a forest he found a lost baby owl in poor health. He took the owl home, nursed it back to health, and taught it to live on its own in the wilderness. The owl did well in the forest, but every now and again he (I think it was a he) came back to say hello to the man who saved him. I loved that book. The book also taught me a great deal about owls. The more I read, the more convinced I was that I should write a book about owls. Enter Mr. Ocax! But—as I wrote about the owl, I needed to detail what owls ate. They ate—among other things—mice. Enter Poppy! The book therefore begins with Mr. Ocax, but as always with me, the more I wrote, the more the story changed. I had become interested in the mouse—Poppy—the creature the owl wished to eat. It became Poppy’s story. In short, I invented as I went along. As I have said before, quoting the poet Robert Frost, “If there are no surprises for the writer, there are no surprises for the reader.”

As for the rest of the Poppy books, that’s another  story.