Guest Post: The Writer's Daughter

I asked my daughter to write a post about what it's like to be the daughter of a writer.  Here's what she had to say...

Writing about being a writer’s daughter is surprisingly hard.

Am I the only person that finds that ironic?

It really does involve a certain amount of “be quiet while mommy’s writing” mixed in with a lot of “tell me what you think of this.” My life is long bouts of silence with intermittent talking. It means that I am one of the remarkably few people who actually knows what beta reading is. (I have it on my resume and you would not believe the questions sometimes)

It also means that people who defile books into book “art” should be shot, grammatical and/or spelling errors are an offense worthy of creative and prolonged torture (there are just…so…MANY), and there’s this overwhelming urge to correct people when they use words wrong.

Or maybe that’s just me.

And that’s part of the problem. Because I don’t know how much of it is being “a writer’s daughter” and how much of it is me. Writing and all the stuff associated with it have been a part of my life for as long as I can remember, as natural as breathing. I can’t help but edit everything I read (and I mean everything: menus, signs, Facebook posts :shudder:), can’t help but love the smell of old books. It’s like it’s in my DNA.

That might, in fact, be why I also write (fanfiction). It never occurred to me not to. (Seriously, dude, it’s fanfiction, not the next great novel)(Shut up)(I would like to point out, for the record, that I inherited the voices in my head from my mom. Just look at some of her posts.)

I look at everyday situations and think of how it could be a story. That guy in the airport, who’s he waiting for? Women in dark suits and sunglasses walk down the street and in my head it’s Matrix 4. It’s not just that I’m crazy or easily distracted (shiny objects are my friends. Oooooh), it’s that I have this disease, writeritis, that I inherited from her. Like my hair or my nose (thanks, mom).

So that’s what being a writer’s daughter is for me, I think. Alternately, that’s just one big, nonsensical jumble, in which case, feel free to ignore me. But if any of this makes any sense to you, please let me and everyone else who sees this know. ‘Cause it would be nice to know that being the child of someone who takes the random stuff in their head and puts it out there for the world to see doesn’t make you as weird as you think. 

(…It doesn't, does it?)