A Little History With Our Food

by G.Parker

Inspiration comes from the strangest sources.

I was working at a school this past week and waiting for a teacher to come, so I was perusing the books on the cookbook shelf in the library.  Yes, that might seem strange, but I happen to love cookbooks, and the shelf was right next to where I was set up to work.

Anyway, they had an old copy of Little House on the Prairie Cookbook by Barbara M. Walker.  I vaguely remembered hearing about it and perhaps seeing it once before, but haven't had a chance to really look at it.  I picked it up and the first paragraph says:

          "Laura Ingalls Wilder was born in Pepin, Wisconsin, in 1867. In 1932, when she was
           sixty-five years old, she wrote her first book, Little House in the Big Woods, a lightly
           fictionalized account of her childhood days in her first frontier home."

I read that.  And then read it again to make sure I'd read it correctly.  The woman was 65 when she wrote her first book!  The knowledge that this amazing woman started so late and spent ten years writing about her past and selling thousands of copies made my heart pound.

Anything that shows how successful an author was helps me get excited about my possibilities.  (Of course, one has to be writing consistently and getting things edited and then out to publishers to get there, but that's another story for another day, lol.)  But just think about it.  How many people have you heard about how they didn't start writing until they were retired, or they didn't start painting, or they waited till...

Is that your story?  Is that how you are going to be remembered?  I figure my kids will tell stories about mom doing NaNoWriMo and then never doing anything else.  Sigh.  I'm determined to do better this year, in fact I have to or my hubby is going to take DirectTV away and I won't get to watch as much of the Olympics as I want...(it's a bet we had).

I just thought that perhaps this knowledge, this little tidbit might be a bit of inspiration for you.  The little prod to get you going.

Now get back to writing!!

See you next week.