A chocolate Northern Lite Cooler sits between us, though slightly closer to the small hands that reach for it with twice the frequency. She’s filled three pages already in the half hour we’ve been here, but each page consists of three or four words, perhaps even a sentence or two, and then a wild flurry of scribbles. Needless to say, I’m not getting very far on my own writing.

 

My daughter has expressed an interest in writing since she was very young—even before she was able to read and write. She would illustrate stories—long, detailed stories—and then recite them from memory. Once reading and writing started, she began doing what writers do—collecting notebooks. Ten pages filled in this one, three or four written in another, bits and spurts and starts of stories interspersed with her tell-tale illustrations.

 

We are here to nurture that interest. To fuel the fire that that began, like her mother, “Once Upon a Time…” And, of course, to drink Mochas.

 

(Maybe, if she’ll let me, I’ll post her story later. But given the way she’s guarding it with every body part she can spare, I wouldn’t hold your breath!)