Pamela Walls of Hollister has always dreamed of adventure.
Without a doubt, at 48, she has found it.
Pamela Walls of Hollister has always dreamed of adventure. Without a doubt, at 48, she has found it.
She has not only authored a series of eight successful children’s books recently released nationally, but Walls, who exudes an energetic joy with seemingly every spoken word, has triumphed while enduring a rare neurological disorder – which, incidentally, causes massive fatigue while progressively diminishing nerve function.
“You just get very fatigued, and that’s something you learn to live with,” Walls says.
Most people don’t write eight books in two years when the doctor says “get rest.” But Walls isn’t most people. She says she has always had a certain enthusiasm, a consummate inner drive.
“Subconsciously, you just push really hard,” she says. “You just push yourself. You have to; there’s no choice.”
Walls has lived her entire life with Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease, a genetic ailment, though she wasn’t diagnosed until she was 33.
With CMT, she says, “the muscles waste away.” They continuously lose vitality and the disease often worsens with age. Eventually, those afflicted end up with 40 percent less strength than an average person, she says.
CMT afflicts about 150,000 Americans and is found worldwide among all races and ethnic groups, according to the CMT Association. Others in Walls’ family, including her father, also have the disease. The disorder has no cure or treatment, but it is not life-threatening.
CMT’s physical effects on Walls aren’t remarkably obvious at first sight; she doesn’t walk abnormally by any means. However, signs are more evident with a closer look at her hands and legs, which she described as “really, really skinny.” And she says her feet “look like little horsey hooves.”
As a child, Walls would constantly fall and scrape her knees because of decreased muscle strength in her legs.
“I used to fall all the time,” she says. “They expected me to keep up in P.E. with everyone else. I just thought I was slow.”
Escapades in literature
Writing, she says, was her first love. She received a degree in science writing and co-authored a book about aquaculture while at the University of California, San Diego – one of several schools she attended in the state. But the book was never published.
After getting married and having two daughters and after an array of various writing jobs – including as an advertising copywriter and as a freelance journalist for newspapers and magazines – Walls decided to pursue her long-time dream – to write a children’s book and attempt to get it published.
“Actually, I really wanted to sell it at Costco because that’s the only place I could afford to buy a book,” she says. “It was a big dream.”
The inspiration for the South Seas Adventures, her series of eight children’s adventure books targeted at kids ages 8 to 13, came from her own daughters and the stories Walls would tell them before bedtime.
“The girls told me to write down the stories I had been telling them,” she says.
At that time, in 1998, while living in San Jose, she had chosen not to be employed to spend more time with the family. Additionally, working full-time was difficult with the fatigue caused by CMT.
Walls heard about a writers conference in the area, where editors were to consider story ideas from potential authors. But she didn’t have enough money at the time and mailed only $75 of the requested $500.
She began to write the book, highly uncertain whether she would even get the chance to sell the idea. But then, “someone anonymously paid the whole fee.” Her benefactor turned out to be her childhood babysitter from San Jose, Debbie Judge.
“They (Judge and her husband) said they believe in my work.”
A year later, she received a contract with Tyndale House Publishers, which was so impressed by her first book that requests for ideas for three more books followed.
Walls, however, didn’t send three ideas. Instead, she impulsively decided “at the last minute” to send story concepts for seven more books.
“About 10 months later they called and said they wanted eight books,” she recalls.
Tyndale House, she says, has experienced rampant success in recent years, highlighted by a series called “Left Behind” that reached No. 1 on the New York Times Bestseller List.
Wells, her husband and two daughters moved to Hollister in September 1998 because of San Jose’s housing costs, so she could write full-time.
A writer’s inspiration, an inspiration for fans
Many aspects of the eight stories, which revolve around the worldly ventures of a 13-year-old girl named Abby, are based on Walls’ own life. She says the personalities of two main characters, including Abby, were modeled after her daughters.
The series follows Abby and her best friend Luke through the South Pacific in 1837. In each book, they end up in different geographic regions, such China, Tahiti, Maui and even California. Walls say she is particularly proud of the historical and cultural knowledge, which she gained through experiences and research, that she infuses into the South Seas Adventures.
Walls relates aspects of her life, such as a year before college in Hawaii backpacking and sailing. And she relates her disease, resoundingly.
Abby, also, is tormented by CMT. But since the disease wasn’t discovered until 1886, in the stories Abby believes she merely has weak legs – presumed to be an inheritance from her mother.
Above all, as in Walls’ own life, Abby’s character is constantly faced with immense challenges. Of course, Abby’s are a bit more fantasy-oriented. She falls into a dragon pit. She is attacked by sharks. She gets trapped on a runaway hot-air balloon. And each time, Abby – like her creator – finds a way to beat adversity.
“I give her lots of problems, so she has to overcome a lot in each book,” Walls says.
The series has sold about 70,000 books, with the eighth and final release in May 2002, she says. Walls has gained a fan base, not only because of her wildly fictitious children’s narratives, but also because of her own reality.
At the end of each volume, she wrote about herself, her lifetime struggles with CMT, her inspirations. She says readers often write back to her – mostly children who are struggling with something themselves.
A boy with heart problems recently wrote to Walls. So did a woman who is almost completely paralyzed.
“Abby is brave,” one child wrote. “I want to grow up and be just like Abby.”
And Walls has achieved her dream – her books are being sold at Costco. She actually did book signings at a San Jose store with every new volume released and, she says, set a record for books sold each time.
For now, Walls is taking a break from children’s fiction. She has begun writing a novel for adults, and may delve into non-fiction sometime after.
In February, she began substitute teaching at San Benito High School – to be with kids, she says. She often visits schools and speaks at assemblies. And two weeks ago she taught at a writers conference.
“I just get so excited about everything,” she says. It’s kind of hard to find one thing to do.”
Those words, from a woman who was destined for strife, who is supposed to be endlessly burned out, who is scorching with desire.
