Tag: Aspiring writers

By Maggie King

As a devotee of Nancy Drew, I wrote mysteries in grade school. In high school I poured my considerable adolescent angst into bad poetry. After that, the only writing I did for many years was journaling. During the last year I lived in Los Angeles, three of my co-workers took creative writing and screenwriting courses at UCLA Extension. I read their work and was impressed by their talent. I also thought “I could do this.” I belonged to a mystery book group (it was the model for the Murder on Tour group in Murder at the Book Group) and felt confident that I could turn out a mystery. When I moved to Virginia in 1996 the first thing I did was to register for a writing course at the University of Virginia. Two women, Margaret and Tristan, taught the course and were extremely encouraging and supportive of their students.

Despite the subtitle of this post, “My First Writing Effort,” my actual first writing efforts (the ones inspired by Nancy Drew) have vanished. But in that class at UVA I started a story I called Death Comes Knocking. When I submitted it, I received a lot of helpful feedback from the teachers and students. Here it is (I haven’t changed a word. Honest!):

Deanna unlocked the door of the motel room, flipping the light switch as she entered. She threw her purse down on the chair, sat on the edge of the lumpy bed, stood up, started pacing. Waiting. Clearly agitated. She no longer noticed the holes in the carpet, the cigarette burns on the formica nightstands as well as on the foam-filled vinyl chair cushions, or the steady drip of the shower.

She had been meeting her lover in the sleazy rooms of Marty’s Hideaway many times over the past year, but this time was different. This time they would talk about the future of their relationship, if indeed there was one.

The last time they met, Deanna had hit him with the news that she was pregnant. He didn’t have much to say, in fact he had lapsed into silence for an hour, a silence she wasn’t able to break. Then he said he needed time to think, that he would call her. He was distant.

He didn’t call for several days. Deanna was sure he was going to bolt, that this was the end for them. After a period of fretting, obsessing, and barely functioning, she started to accept his desertion. But then he did call, said he wanted to see her, he’d done a lot of reflecting, “agonizing” was how he put it, about their situation. He had seemed rather excited on the phone, not like his usual subdued self. They arranged a time to meet at “their” place.

So here she was, at Marty’s Hideaway, waiting for him, for his decision. She vaguely resented that he controlled the relationship, but didn’t feel up to addressing that issue now. She knew she couldn’t express her needs, like marriage, family, living happily ever after, etc. she paced some more, drank water from a plastic cup, felt almost desperate enough to peruse the inevitable Gideon bible, a blasphemous joke in this place where the clientele paid by the hour.

She jumped when she heard the knock. As she ran to open the door, she put on a big smile, and tried to pretend that she wasn’t nervous. She was greeted by an enormous bouquet of red roses, so enormous that it totally obscured the face of its presenter. What a nice surprise!—he wasn’t given to relationship niceties like flowers, and this arrangement must have cost him a fortune. So maybe he had decided to take the plunge, and make a commitment to her after all—maybe things were looking up.

Then the bouquet fell to the floor, the beautiful floral arrangement strewn over the ugly, threadbare carpet. Deanna bent down to pick them up, but stopped, startled, uncomprehending at what she saw before her. And she would never be able to reveal what she did see in that moment just before her world went black.

I wish I still had the critique comments from the teachers and the students. It’s not great writing, but, after all, it’s a first effort. I’ve toyed with the idea of doing something with it, perhaps a short story.

It was many years before I published any of my work, but to date my credits include three novels and numerous short stories.

The important lesson for me and one I will pass on to aspiring writers: look at the title and the first paragraph of this post where I told myself “I could do this.” Well, I am doing this. But it took that first effort.

Originally published as “How It All Started: My First Writing Effort” in the Novelspaces blog, June 22, 2018