Recently, I began to ponder what makes someone a good writer. Does genetics play a part in determining who can write and who can’t? I tend to think that it might, but with some variations. One parent could be a writer while the other has no writing ability at all. If writing ability is influenced more by reading books and learning, then genetics would only have a small bearing on someone’s overall talent with words. Or, maybe genetics for writing well skips a generation and thus our talents come from our grandparents. Often, writers will emerge from families who are not known for their intellect or writing talents. So the genetic influence would not work in this situation.

I only bring this up because I question how I even became a writer, with two parents who only write letters and occasional bits of prose. I think my mom may have written poetry once, but she struggled during a short story writing class in college and quickly quit, even after I tried to tutor her. I don’t know how she continually gets to write the annual Christmas letter. It’s a scary thing I must say. She doesn’t even send me one anymore because I think she’s scared that we may find errors or make fun of it. (Which is all true)

My dad is a good writer, but he only really writes business letters and such. He went to school to become a forest ranger and studied bugs. He has a dead bug collection in the basement somewhere that I used to look at all the time, which may explain my fascination with insects. But it has no bearing on my ability to write.

I think that I have to look further back to my grandfather to find my writing talent. He has always fostered my love of reading and encouraged me to buy books. And he is in the process of writing his life story. I don’t know if it’s good or not, but at least he is a writer. And I think that this is where my talent comes from.

But who knows. I may have another ancestor far back in my family tree who has passed down his or her talents to me, generation by generation. I would be very interested in finding out if other writers lived within my family. I’m sure I’m not the only one.