Jill Campbell: Everyone has a story, so everyone should write

Unquestionably, there are millions of books that have never been written. Book writing may be a tedious task, but unwritten poems and short stories are simpler creations left unveiled.

Most of us would take pleasure in quenching our curiosity and absorbing the data if only we could read a piece written by any of our relatives past and present. There are so many questions left unanswered, and basic facts disappear when they are not recorded in journals.

Television fails to open the windows of our minds in comparison to the knowledge we gain through reading and the insight we gain, through research, when writing. Off-the-cuff writing is a release, and good reading material is an escape from the methodics of everyday life.

Interestingly, writing includes many genres, such as juvenile picture books, young adult graphic novels, textbooks, poetry, instruction manuals, travel guides, fiction and non-fiction. There can be a fine line between fiction and non-fiction, however. Sometime authors feel the need to plant bits of truth within their fiction stories or add a little more drama to their non-fiction pieces, causing the two to cross paths.

Those blessed enough to write jokes, monologues and scripts for movies and plays are probably living their dreams come true. Like artists with a brush balanced between fingers is a pen in the hand of writers.

Ohio can take pride in its authors.

Every time I visit the hills of our state, I cannot get enough of Louis Bromfield's Malabar farm in Lucas. Born in Mansfield, Bromfield was a Pulitzer Prize-winning author who studied agriculture and journalism. I enjoyed reading his book "Pleasant Valley." Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall were married on the farm in 1945 and spent their honeymoon there. A conservationist, Bromfield wrote about and practiced ways to improve the soil. He died in March 1956, three months before I was born.

Harriet Beecher Stowe was born June 14, 1811, in Connecticut but spent almost 20 years living in Cincinnati. While she wrote many magazine articles and other books, she is best known as the author of "Uncle Tom's Cabin." According to a biography written by Suzanne M. Coil, Harriet wrote upon a kitchen table along side flour, rolling pin and ginger as she raised her children and managed the household.

At first I was skeptical of the poems penned by Helen Steiner Rice. She was born in 1900 in Lorain. After all, "No genuine person could compose that much powder puff," I thought. After reading the book "Ambassador of Sunshine," I became a fan of a woman with a sincere and compassionate heart. While she helped in sales, she was known for writing greeting card verses for the Gibson Art Company, a business that weathered the great depression. Helen died in Cincinnati at the age of 81.

Who can forget the humorist born in Dayton, Erma Bombeck? She caused all her readers to laugh about the everyday life of a housewife and even had a television show called "Maggie." In the book "A Marriage Made in Heaven," Erma quotes what her husband said to help her stay levelheaded within thriving success: "When he saw me taking myself too seriously, he would smile and say, ‘Hey Erma, I was at the library today and all of your books are... in." Erma died in her 60s. I can only imagine the number of writers who would love to fill her shoes.

Creatively written text is as unique as snowflakes and fingerprints because everyone has his or her own thoughts and ideas. If you know how to type, today's word processors make writing much easier than using inkwell and quill.

Many of us cannot carry a tune. Most of us are not talented athletes; but everyone should write because everyone has a story.