Author: Bill
I hear people say that they always knew they wanted to write. Those people often wrote stories as children. To others the writing bug came later. I was in high school. My 11th grade English teacher submitted a poem I had written to a state poetry contest. I didn’t know she had done this, and I didn’t know that I had won some recognition until the school principal called me out of class and told me. I must have appeared totally discombobulated, because this was the first time ever I had been called to the Principal’s office — I couldn’t imagine what I had done wrong — but by the time I arrived, I was sure it was something. I had been known to be a smart-mouth and a passive-aggressive little pr_ _ k. Since all my transgressions, until now, had flown safely under the radar, it was a total mystery how they reached the top of the school hierarchy.
You would have thought my walk down the empty halls, with my mind agitating like a crowd whose team was 2 points from the championship with 3 seconds on the clock, and my hands sweating like the locker room after 2nd period gym class, was a slow walk to the gallows.
I was shown into the inner sanctum. The Principal smiled, rose, reached over the walnut desk and shook my hand. “This must be how they do it,” I thought, “just before strapping the condemned into the electric chair.”
“Have a seat,” he said, still smiling. “Congratulations.”
Huh?
“Congratulations for getting an honorable mention for your poem in the Utah State Poetry Society’s Youth Contest.”
He seemed sincere, but I didn’t have a clue about what he was saying. He might as well have been speaking Swahili.
He presented me with a newspaper clipping and there was my name and the name of the poem I had written circled in red ink.
Later, came an embarrassment of attention. The school newspaper printed my poem, a photo of me, and an interview. The question was asked, “When do you write poetry?”
I responded, “Just when I’m in the mood,” followed by a nervous laugh.
The headline read — His Moodiness Amuses Him. See what I meant by embarrassment? What high school boy wants to be thought of as moody? I wasn’t the athletic type, but I didn’t run or throw a baseball like a girl either. Moodiness was a term reserved for girly-boys. That wasn’t me, even if I wasn’t the fastest runner on the track. I have a long torso and short legs. I wasn’t built for speed.
From that day on, I thought of myself not as a poet, but an occasional writer of poetry. Defining me as a poet took many, many, more years and honestly, I’m still not sure I deserve that particular tag.
How about this for fun?
What about you? You who found the patience to wade through this post, how did you awaken to the writer in you? What is your story? We could use The Red Hen Association’s website to publish your stories about your paths. Send a jpeg photo too and we will publish your story and your picture.
Posted in Poetry, Writing | 
Tags: Children, English Teacher, High School, Honorable Mention, jpeg, Newspaper Clipping, Picture, Poem, Poet, Poetry Contest, Principal's Office, School Principal, Stories, Story, The-Red-Hen-Association, Utah State Poetry Society, Website, Writer, Writer of Poetry, Writing-Bug
It all started in 2nd grade. I just loved writing book reports on Golden Books! My reports were passed on to the Principal.
In 7th grade, we studied literature for the first time – Shakespeare and Coleridge and historical fiction. I scored so highly on essays that the teacher would give me grades like 100+10. Because I was by then acknowledged as smart (certainly not popular) , I was voted president of my class for a short time until my habit of forgettting to carry the section card from class to class undid me.
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Ninth grade I was in the Journalism class that produced the school magazine and wrote a parody called Wild Dill Pickle Rides Again. My father's reaction: You call yourself a writer. You're not a writer. A writer does this and that….Needless to say, that constituted a major setback.
It wasn't until I was 43 that I was first published. I read a local newspaper and said, I could do that! So I did. I progressed to national newspapers, trade journals, a column in the NY Post and finally a non-fiction book.
I still have weirdly ambitious dreams of publishing more fiction while wondering if maybe I'm "just" a journalist.
Writing has always been as close to me as breathing. I grew up on a ranch in Montana in the days when there was just one television station, so I read constantly and wrote a lot of REALLY bad poetry as a teenager.
I also loved learning foreign languages, which in turn taught me a great deal about English. And I had a wonderful, inspiring English teacher when I was a junior in high school. Her name was Mrs. Quanbeck, and (30 years later) she is still my favorite teacher–even after earning a BA and two MAs! (I tracked her down through the Internet last year, called her out of the blue, and told her how much she'd meant to me. It was wonderful.)
As an adult, I've taught writing and English as a second language to hundreds of college students, and I've written my share of corporate communications, too. I've also edited lots of stuff–business communications and academic papers, mostly.
My major passions revolve around human performance development and lifelong learning, so I tend to write nonfiction articles, ebooks, and ecourses that teach something. What most astonishes me about writing is the power it has to help us learn, create and heal.
It is such a wonderful tool for self-discovery–whether we understand how to make our verbs agree with their subjects or not!
It started for me after I retired. Oh, I'd written lots of business and professional stuff over the years. Procedure and Policy Manuals, work flows, engineering related documents, etc.. Since retirement however, I have 9 books and dozens of articles in some stage of completion. (Scared to actually publish yet though)–not sure they're good enough but I'm working up to it.
Been an avid reader all my life and appreciate a good word smithy as a musician appreciates good music. I do that too, sing that is; I sing Baritone in a Barbershop Quartet.
I've always been a story teller. The first evidence of this was in kindergarten. While I have no direct recollection, my mother often recounts a tale from my kindergarten teacher . According to her, at story time would stand me in the middle of a circle of kids. I would keep the group entertained while she attended to some other task. The teacher said that she was astonished that, at such a tender age, I had the ability to create original stories off the cuff.
I never thought of myself as a writer, but I always wrote, mostly for my own entertainment, without any idea doing so could be a career. Later in school I discovered artistic talents. Eventually I went to Art School, and found work in the graphic arts industry. Still later I developed an interest in photography, which lead to my opening a photography business. For many years my primary focus was on the visual arts.
It was only much later that I rediscovered writing. When my eldest daughter was born in 1971 I began writing stories for her. Later, as co-owner of a day care centre I wrote stories for use in the school and rediscovered the dormant story teller within.
After leaving the day-care I began an import export company. I was often called on to write ad copy, sales letters, and proposals. I this time I became aware that the storyteller in me had much more to say.
I took some writing courses focused on article publishing and began to consider writing as a profession. Life took several odd turns which made it impractical for me to write full time. I did however begin to seek out freelance writing assignments where I could apply what I'd learned in my writing course.
Once I sold a few articles the desire to continue writing increased from background noise to a steady persistent drum beat. As with most writers there are stories I want to tell. Some of which have become very demanding of my attention. For me at least coming to see myself as a writer as been a halting, circuitous path.
Now, approaching 60 I can look back with a better understanding that I've always had a need to communicate with others and express myself creatively. .. What I now understand is that writing is merely another means of communication and self expression.
As a working artist and photographer, such communication was visual. All the same I was telling a story through a creative media.
In writing I can create pictures with words, pictures which are somewhat larger and more complex than visual images along. I recognise that when I write there is a power in words that allow me to make connections, evoke an emotions or explore the deep complexities of being human that is difficult with other media. In that regard I have always been a writer at heart.