Growing a Writer:
I have known that I wanted to write since my first grade teacher, Mrs. Robinson, praised my poetry and posted it on the bulletin board in the classroom for everyone to see. Unfortunately, Mrs. Robinson died half-way through the year, so I only received her wisdom and creative support for a short while. However, at her funeral, Mrs. Robinson’s daughter came up to my mother and offered to give her back my poems and other pieces. It seems that she had the habit of keeping pieces she particularly liked in a scrapbook, and mine were featured among them. Mother thanked her, but asked her to keep the pieces with the others in the book.
A year or so later, my sister created a “writing studio” for me in a corner of our garage (right next to her artist’s studio). It consisted of an old table made of plywood and old falling-down sawhorses, a lawn chair with a bent frame, and scraps of paper, cardboard, half-used pens and pencils, and other writing materials. I went to “work” there almost every day of the summer for several years.
I was consistently praised for my writing through school, though my creative writing forays consisted of very, very bad unrequited love poetry, and equally horrific “romantic” short stories in which someone always died, leaving the heroine brave, but brokenhearted.
As much as I wanted to write, I was discouraged from pursuing writing as a career. Journalism was the only path for a writer of which my parents approved, since there would be stability and job security (so they thought) in writing for a newspaper or magazine.
Trouble was, I discovered I didn’t want to write what others wanted me to write. I wanted to crawl inside my head and see what unfolded, what characters appeared and what they said. That was magical. Writing expository pieces was never more than interesting.
So, I became a teacher instead. One who works with deaf and hard-of-hearing students, most of whom have extreme difficulty in acquiring high levels of literacy with English. And I’ve never regretted that decision, not in almost 25 years. I have an extremely rewarding and engaging career, and I get the chance to share my love of reading and writing everyday.
But, the writing bug wouldn’t die. Sometimes it lays dormant, and sometimes it all but takes over my every waking thought, but it’s always there. And luckily, I’ve found ways to put the bug to work (or it puts me to work!) and channel my creative urges in positive (and fun…usually) ways. I journal. I write poetry often (and bad poetry even more often). I keep story ideas going until they become something or they peter out, usually with a gem of an idea for another story. And I’ve been blessed in finding other women who, like me, can’t quite comply with the nagging thought of putting the pen down and the manuscript in the drawer for good.
I always considered writing (for me) a solitary craft. Just me, my coffee, my pen (or keyboard), and paper. But writing and getting/giving feedback within the confines of a small, safe group of like-minded women has been an amazing experience. I look forward to our meetings every month, and can hardly wait to see what a small group of extremely intelligent, honest, and creative women (such as US!) will create. It’s bound to be just what I dreamed of when, as a six year old, I began to think of myself as a writer.
No. On second thought, I think it will be better. — js ( 7/31/08 )
