I'm remembering this morning my first sale and what a departure it was from my original intents.  From the time I was about 10 years old I was reading the fiction in every issue of Good Housekeeping, Woman's Home Companion and Ladies Home Journal. By age 12 I knew I wanted to be a writer and with the guidance of those women's magazines (back then every issue carried two or three fiction pieces) I knew that  only could one consider oneself an author if  her name appeared as the by-line for published fiction.  

Among the magazines that came to our home was the monthly publication of the Automobile Club of Southern California,  Westways,  In the front of each issue was a page that included annecdotes about travel and brief bios on interesting people. From the time I was 14, I had worked as a "soda jerk" (soda fountain employee) at the local drugstore after school and on weekends.  An elderly Indian (we have to say "Native American" now) came in every Saturday and pointed to the vanilla ice cream cone portrayed on the on the large poster that stood on the soda fountain counter.  He slapped a dime on the counter as he said "Manilla." Outside, with his cone, he sat on the cement steps to eat it.  I watched through the window as his tongue barely missed the flies that swarmed around his head and landed on the ice cream. 

Even though I was dedicated to writing fiction, I had noted that the Westways editorial page invited readers to send in anecdotes about travel, people, automobiles, etc.  I decided to send them a profile of my "Manilla Indian."  Although the editor had to cut my piece down from about 1000 words to about 300, she accepted my little story and paid me $10.  Wow!  I was a published writer.  That was the first of more than 25 articles I sold to that magazine.  Of the more than 80 publications that have carried my by-line, fewer than 10 of those sales were fiction.   

Until tomorrow, Willma