One Writer's Creative Path

Three things that I feel give my life meaning are family, art, and helping people. If I can use art to help people (and make a living for my family), what could be better?

I have been tempted to say I just fell into being a writer, like it was a river I recently slipped into, but when I look back over my life it seems writing and I were linked a long time ago.

My parents provided both inspiration and encouragement for my creativity. My mother was still going to college when I was born. After dallying in a couple of other majors, she settled on studio art. She brought me to classes with her and to the studio. I watched her paint and draw and carve. My father was an editor and a writer. Together, they would make me books ñ she would do the illustrations (birds, Snoopy characters) and he would create word puzzles and games. I loved those books. I loved the fact that they made them as much as I enjoyed looking at them and playing with them.

They encouraged my expressions of creativity too. I made one-kid exhibits in my bed room and had them come for viewings. I would make up dances to popular songs and have them be my audience. They also watched me draw my dream house – it had innumerable rooms filled with volcanoes, costumes, time machines, swimming pools, and food of every imaginable sort. It had elevators and escalators all over the place. I adored my dream house.

But my favorite creative outlet was writing. I wrote all kinds of poems, stories, jokes. I had a poem published in a national children’s magazine, which was exciting. But even more exciting was having a poem performed by a drama troupe at the local university. I have two distinct memories from that experience – one was being dressed up, sitting in the audience watching them act out my poem. I found it wonderful to see my words being given form and spirit!

The second memory was of one of my best friends seeing the program from the poetry show. She looked at the list of poets whose poems had been performed and said "What are you doing on here with all of these famous people?" Simultaneously, I thought "How rude!" and "That’s a good question."

I had an experience in high school that seems like almost a cliche now ñ one of my favorite teachers told me I was the worst writer in class. This episode did not fill me with indignation and the idea that I was going to show her, or sink me into despair. I was momentarily horrified, but I ended up saying "whatever." I knew I wanted to major in English at Mary Washington College, so that’s what I was going to do, unless my college professors found my writing so painful that they asked me not to.

They didn’t. I did very well in my major. But I didn’t seriously consider becoming a writer. I thought that the options for becoming a writer were to be a newspaper reporter (which I wasn’t interested in) or be a bestselling fiction author (which I thought was nearly impossible to do). I knew I didn’t want to teach English, which is what people often asked me when they found out my major.

At various points I wanted to study constitutional law (but I thought there were only nine job openings in this field, and I decided it would take too long to become a Supreme Court Justice) and learn to fly a helicopter so I could swoop into South Africa and rescue Nelson Mandela. (Funny how I thought becoming a writer was impractical...)

My senior year in college I concluded that I wanted to go into some form of the media, probably movies, so I applied to graduate schools that had good Communications Studies departments. I was accepted at the University of Iowa and moved out there without ever seeing the campus or my new apartment. Ben, my soon-to-be husband, made the trek from the East to the Midwest with me. He’s an electrical engineer, and more precise than I am, but a very creative thinker. Luckily, we both loved Iowa City and had a wonderful two years while I was getting my master’s degree.

In May 1993, after graduation, my husband and I wanted to spend the summer in a place that had a very different culture from ours, so we went to Guatemala. Some people understood why we would go to Guatemala perfectly, and others said "Why not go to France?"

I mention our trip specifically because I felt enormously creative while we were there. I thought at the time that it was due to the absence of television and other media stimuli. I felt like that freed me from clutter. That was probably part of it, but I also think now that just being in Guatemala was very creatively stimulating. It was so unlike anywhere I’d ever been and so challenging mentally, physically, and emotionally.

Afterwards, we ended up making Atlanta our new home when my husband found a job there. When I was job-hunting, a friend mentioned that she knew of an opening at her company for a media writer. It sounded terribly appropriate for me, not to mention well-paying, but I didn’t go for it. I wanted something less corporate and more creative. I found a job with a theater – it was low-paying, but I enjoyed it.

One morning in the shower, I had an idea for a public service newsletter about women in Atlanta who were making a positive difference in their communities. (I find that I get a lot of good ideas when I am showering and also when I am about to go to sleep ñ neither of which times is very good for note-taking, but that’s another story.) There were many times as I was getting the newsletter started that I felt unsure of myself. I almost didn’t make a phone call or didn’t write a letter, but my husband was very supportive and a huge help, and I did make those calls and write those letters. Thus, two months later, Eye on Women was born.

Speaking of birth – at the same time the second issue came out (January 1995), I had our daughter, Ariana. So I was taking care of a newborn, working part-time at a theater, and publishing a newsletter. I questioned my sanity on a regular basis. But the women I interviewed were very inspirational to me, and I loved sharing their stories. That motivated me, and the assistance I received from my family (including my parents) was crucial.

Somewhere along the way I realized that writers don’t have to be reporters or bestsellers, that there are other options. In 1996, I wrote a non-fiction book for young teens entitled The Aftermath of the Holocaust (Enslow Publishers). And I have been writing various works of nonfiction for adults and both fiction and nonfiction for children. I have recently started dabbling in fiction for adults. Writing can be a struggle ñ both in terms of the actual writing process and in terms of finding a publisher – but it’s something I can’t help but do.

This article was originally featured in Art Passions' Paths of Passions.

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Buy The Holocaust Survivors for young adults, July 1998 (Enslow Publishers) From The Publisher: The Holocaust Survivors details the harsh stories of those who lived through the Holocaust. For most survivors, life continued to be bleak after the war since they had neither homes nor families to which they could return. Yeatts not only concentrates on the aftermath''s effect on survivors, but on the fate of those responsible for the Holocaust as well.

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