I'M A LATE BLOOMER...
- twillaklamm
- Jan 12, 2024
- 1 min read
Updated: Jul 27, 2025
Some authors know, from early beginnings, they wanted to be writers, but not me. As a child, I enjoyed pretend play, and my favorite activity was paper dolls. My mom helped me cut dolls from discarded Sears and Montgomery Ward catalogs. It was a great day when Mom got her new catalogs.
Mom's only rule was everything had to fit inside a box that would slip beneath my bed. Lots of learning happened with that rule. For example, I learned smaller boxes could fit inside the bigger boxes so I could have more boxes for houses! My dolls had cars made from cereal boxes that would slide over the carpet. I used bottle caps and lids for furniture, and our hallway became the main street of my pretend town complete with shops and stores. My paper dolls had jobs, families, and lives.
Guess what? Playing paper dolls is a lot like writing fiction, creating make-believe worlds in which make-believe people live.
Does that mean I'm in my second childhood?
What a beautiful reminder that the best stories often begin in the simplest places! Your small-town roots shine through in the way you turned catalogs, cereal boxes, and bottle caps into whole worlds—proof that imagination doesn’t need anything fancy to flourish. I love how your childhood “main street” of paper-doll shops and families grew into a lifelong love of learning and creating.
Maybe it is a second childhood—but if so, it’s the very best kind: one where all that early curiosity found its way onto the page.
Don't let the "Numbers" game get the best of you.😉
Oh--and keep celebrating that child's imagination inside you.