The beginning of me as a writer, that is. It started way back, and I have documented proof, thanks to my grandmother, Margaret Johnson, who kept it for me. Her note reads: “Lori — I’m enclosing a story you wrote and sent me in 1978. A foretaste of what you would be doing as you got older.”
I’ve been an avid reader for as long as I can remember. I do recall learning to read in school, the early Dick & Jane books. I have specific and vivid memories of turning those pages in my first grade class. But it wasn’t until I reached the third grade that, thanks to my bff Leah, that I received the epiphany that I could write my own story. About anything I wanted to write about. What I wanted to write about then is not very much different from what I want to write about now. Let me show you…
Yellow Feather and the Wild Mustang, by Lori Johnson (aka me), was a story of an Indian girl who had an unexplained backstory of having run away at some point, who found a wounded mustang, nursed it back to health, and rode it in a race against the boys of her village.
She won, of course. And so did the horse, which could apparently talk because the girl knew it cared about running fast and not about the prize they had won (a necklace of some sort). “Give it to your mother,” the horse told Yellow Feather. Probably good advice!
I share this just to encourage you: do not despise the days of small beginnings. Your own. Your children’s. You never know what plans God has for them to grow and flourish and glorify Him!