Oak, granite, Lilies by the road, Remember me? I remember you. Clouds brushing Clover hills, Remember me? Sister, child, Grown tall, Remember me? I remember you.
I wished she’d never stop squeezing me. I wished I could spend the rest of my life as a child, being slightly crushed by someone who loved me.
I didn't write professionally at first. It took me nine years to get anything published. At the beginning I mostly wrote picture books, which were rejected by every children's book publisher in America. The first book of mine to be accepted for publication was ELLA ENCHANTED, and not one but two publishers wanted it. That day, April 17, 1996, was one of the happiest in my life.
That fool of a fairy Lucinda did not intend to lay a curse on me. She meant to bestow a gift. When I cried inconsolably through my first hour of life, my tears were her inspiration. Shaking her head sympathetically at Mother, the fairy touched my nose. "My gift is obedience. Ella will always be obedient. Now stop crying, child." I stopped.
When I was little I knew my father had been an orphan and had lived in an orphanage. I was curious, but my father wouldn't satisfy my curiosity. He told only one story about the orphanage, and that was of sneaking out and buying candy, which he sold to other orphans. He said he had a pretty good business going - till he was busted! I guess he told that anecdote because he was the hero of it and I suspect he was rarely the hero as a child, more often the victim. There's a photo of the actual orphanage on my website, and you can see it's a forbidding looking place.
