Great Way to Start a Writing Career

When I was in ninth grade, my tenth-grade girlfriend and I decided to skip school.  Both our parents worked, so we thought  this would be a no-sweat venture.  We spent the morning forging my mother’s handwriting since I needed an excuse in order to get back into school.  My mother would have been hard pressed to distinguish the note from her own handwriting.

That evening, Mom asked, “How was school today?”

“Boring as usual,” I replied.  I smiled to myself when nothing more was said.

While sitting in class the next day, however, the principal’s face filled the square window in the door.  He crooked his finger at me.  My English teacher looked at him and then suspiciously back at me as she nodded to me.  “Did you write this?” he boomed waving the excuse before me as I sat in a chair in his office.

“No, sir,” I lied.  He stared at me.  I didn’t flinch.  He cleared his throat and continued to stare.  My palms began to sweat and my face felt hot.

“Are you aware that your mother has notified the school that if you or your brother were not in school, she was to be notified immediately?”

I shook my head.

“She was notified yesterday morning.”

Mom knows?  Yikes!

“I’ll ask again.  Did you write this excuse?”  His veins in his neck bulged.

I looked down at the tile floor.  “Yes.”

“She suggested an appropriate discipline.  You are to write a five hundred word theme on honesty.  Due tomorrow!”

My punishment fit the crime.

I handed the essay in at the office and went to home room.  By noon, my friends buzzed about a paper I had written.  There on the bulletin board outside the lunchroom hung my paper with the words “A   EXTRA CREDIT” in  big letters splashed across the top and signed by my English teacher.  That was the beginning of my writing career that has spanned fifty years.

When I wrote the demanded essay, I automatically applied writing techniques I learned in grade school.  But, the more I wrote, the more I let my emotions leap onto the page.  I became passionate about the honesty of George Washington when he cut down the cherry tree.

Most successful authors have a natural, deep-down bent for writing.  Sure, the mechanics of sentence structure, syntax, and grammar can be learned.  There’s a zillion “How To” books out there.  But, writing will probably lack any luster unlessthere is a message that charges our emotional batteries with a passion and causes us to explore the art of writing ourselves.

If you have a propensity to jot down thoughts, ideas, feelings, situations, or whatever, consider writing about them.  Keep a journal.  Jot down descriptions.  Rearrange words to get the most impact – even if you are the only one who will see them.  Take writing courses – creative, technical, journalist, etc. Venture out.  Write more than a grocery list.  Write a book!  I did.  It’s called “Kiss Your Mommy Goodbye.”

I wanted to show you that even a bad start in writing can end with a flair.  You can do it too.

Remember: “A professional writer is an amateur who didn’t quit.” Richard Bach, American writer.  He’s so write on!

My wise mother never said a word about this incident.  She didn’t have to.  I learned my lesson and discovered a passion.

Rita Kroon