Gnu Writer Speaks: The Autodidact

My new issue of Writer’s Digest arrived yesterday. It was a theme issue on The Top 10 of all sorts of things. On page 39, I spotted tip #6 that resonated; Write What You Want to Learn About. That hit home. I became an autodidact at 19 when a girlfriend dumped me for being uninteresting. W.C. Fields said, ‘It was a woman that drove me to drink and I never wrote to thank her.’ Likewise, I owe Roberta R. a note of thanks for shaming me into learning about the world on my own recognizance. Now, a zillion years later, I still find motivation by writing what I want to learn about, enriching both me and my stories.