Oh, I have another question, Ms. Ellington. I read Memoirs in Gogyohka and was intrigued by your diary entry, The Iceman. Did you date a hockey player?
Hi, Nikki! Good question. I gravitated to writing naturally as a young child, around my 8th and 9th years. Whenever I had a pencil or pen and a sheet of paper, although I preferred notebook paper instead, the materials triggered something in me. I became excited. I started writing down the thoughts in my mind, the names of my friends and family members, the name of my school, things I saw going on around me, everything. I just loved words and connecting them to tell stories. Words were like puzzle pieces, and I loved putting them together. It became my passion, writing. My mother, who had beautiful penmanship, inspired me with her cursive writing style. And I can remember sitting at our kitchen table practicing my mother's cursive style for hours until I perfected it. In time, my cursive was identical to hers, and I remember feeling so proud. People would tell me that my writing was like an adult. I was writing everything in print and cursive from a young age. Many of my childhood girlfriends wanted toys and dolls for Christmas. That was cool because I liked toys and dolls, too, but I loved ink pens, notebook paper, books, and radios. I was a homebody; all I wanted to do was read, write, and listen to music. Those things were my true passion. I was writing all the time. There was always a pen in my right hand and a tablet of wide-ruled subject paper in my left. I wrote so much that my mother once came to me and said, 'Baby, people like you grow up to be writers.' And here I am today, a grown-up writer.
