Growing Up with Writers

I saw Joe Hill on Good Morning America touting his first novel. Joe is author Stephen King's son (and, presumably, though not stated specifically, his mother would be author Tabitha King).

I thought about Hill and I thought about Anne Rice's son (wasn't his father a poet?) and about some of the other writers I've heard about over the years who had one or more parents who wrote. What must it be like to grow up in an environment where writing is "normal"?

I certainly didn't experience that. No one in my family wrote. As far as I ever knew, none of our friends or neighbors wrote. Creative writing wasn't seen as a career choice, but as--at best--a hobby.

In some ways, though, I'm lucky. Creativity was never specifically discouraged. After all, my mother painted (landscapes, mostly, in oils and acrylics) and my step-grandfather was a nature photographer who lectured throughout the Puget Sound area of Washington.

But writing? For a living? Not in my family.