Do you remember the first story you ever read, and the impact it had on you?
"The Hundred and One Dalmatians" by Dodie Smith (1956). Reading this book was meant to be! It was my first experience with "the book is better than the movie."
While watching the Disney movie, I kept asking my grandmother, "Where's Missis? Perdita isn't the mommy." If you've never read the original story, you wouldn't know that Pongo and Missis' owners found Perdita wandering the streets... In the movie, Disney writers changed the main female dog's name from Missis to Perdita.
To this day, if friends want to watch a movie that I KNOW was a book, I stop whatever I'm reading and read it before watching the movie.
If you could tell your younger writing self anything, what would it be?
Don't listen to anyone who tells you that you can't make a living doing what you love! When you do what you love for a living, WORK isn't a four-letter word. ;)
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