Eight Moments in the Life of the Writer: Number 6

By eleven, I was no longer hiding in the corner. I moved onto the glamorous world of broadcast journalism. Up in our tree house, I penned the talk of the town. Car crashes happened, babies were born, tornadoes zoomed through the city and ball games were won. Then, behind the official news desk of our trundle bed, my brother and I were live, my dad filming and our six year old sister forecasting the weather. She was at least as accurate as our local weatherman. I later related this tale to a boy in my Psych. class at BYU.

“And that,” I explained, “is why I want to be a journalist.”

He looked at me like I was, well, a girl who just told him her college education was based on a hide-a-bed, bad weather reports and fast-breaking news. We all can dream right? You’d think I would remember the Turkey Incident, but I didn’t. Sometimes people just don’t get it. Now, I tell myself, it’s important to tell the truth as a writer, but maybe not all of it at once.