Can you brag about your dog--for 10 pages?

I remember as a new writer how I wrote a 10-page-story about our brilliant German Shepherd dog, Max. He truly was smart—but 10 pages worth? You’ve all seen those dogs on TV who it sounds like they say Mama and Love you (or wov you).  Our dog would only say that for the girls and me. Therefore, I made a fool of myself when he refused to say it for the neighbors. Thirty years later, I still get teased about it.

So I signed up for a creative writing class at the local community college. I explained to the professor that 

I’d been out of school for 20 years and was clueless as to how I should write a story. I’ll bet anything he 

wished he hadn’t said to me, “Just write anything. That’ll get you started.” So I did. I wrote all those 

pages—which I never read again—about Max, the brilliant, wonderful dog. The dog who protected our 

children, who was a great judge of character, when hungry, shoved his bowl across the floor at me. I took 

countless pictures of Max, dressed him in T-shirts, sunglasses and hats. He really was a good sport for putting up with me. No wonder he favored the men in the house.

My husband was an insurance adjustor at this time. One of his claims was for Jackie Gleason. Jackie had 

been hospitalized when my husband first worked on his claim. When my husband had to make a second trip 

to his place, I made a get well card with—well? What else? Max’s picture with him in the T-shirt, sunglasses

and, um, reading a book while lying on the couch. He told my husband to thank me. Probably thought I was 

a lunatic.

At that time in my life I knew of two things: raising children and dogs. So my next stories all seemed to be on 

the Erma Bombeck side of life, or so my classmates said. I was always told to write about what you know. 

That was it.

I did take stretch-and-sew lessons, but I really don’t like sewing. I took guitar lessons to keep me sane when blizzards came our way. Never did learn how to play. Then I took belly dancing lessons for exercise. 

Should’ve kept that up, great for weight loss. That’s when my husband suggested I might want to attend 

college. I still didn’t know what I wanted to be when I grew up. Writing has always been the one thing I loved to do.

Since that time, I’ve had a lot of experiences, which gives me much more to write about.

 How about you? What did you first write about? How did you get started with your writing? What pushed 

you to start putting words on that page?