Unexpected Encouragment

When I finally decided, this is it, I'm going to do it. I'm going to write a novel. Random memories from my life started to pop up. Things started coming to me in flashes with complete clairty. Kinda like waking up after a morning of drinking and remembering what you did the night before in small incriments. Not that I have ever done that...

Anyway, I started to remember that I have been writing fiction for some time. I remember a time after school, I must have been in the 4^th grade, I wrote a story for our babysitter. I don't recall what the story was about now but I do remember my babysitter pointing out that I spelled machines incorrectly. She was in highschool and apparently knowledgeable in how to spell things. I must have been unaware of this when I asked her to read it. I was writing in a Lisa Frank diary, there was no spell check. I tried to play it off like I meant to misspell machine because I was making up some new type of machines. I don't think she bought it.

When I was in 9^th grade my english teacher handed out those little blue test booklets that most of you will probably remember from college. He said that we had to write in them. He didn't care what it was and he was not going to read them. All he cared about was that we wrote 4 pages every week. On Fridays he would walk around to each student and we would have to show him our 4 pages and he would sign the bottom of the last page to ensure you didn't try to pass off old work. I remember being ridiculously excited about this. I was being encouraged to write whatever I wanted and no one was going to read it. I instantly decided on fiction. I actually wrote what would today be considered a Young Adult Fantasy Romance. It included magic medallions, deserted islands, seemingly unstoppable forces of evil and of course a hunky guy that my heroine instantly fell for. I wonder if I kept these and have them stashed away somewhere. I'm pretty sure that one story filled most of the school year. I must have filled a dozen of those little blue test booklets in 4 page chunks.

My senior year of highschool we had the option to take a 4^th year of english, or we could take a one semester writing course and a one semester literary course. Since my high school offered a creative writing class I opted for the latter.

I always loved my English classes. Most of my classmates would complain about the books we were reading but I usually enjoyed them.  In an attempt to not standout and therefore subject myself to ridicule (I got that on plenty of other topics) I complained right along with the rest of them. I was a closet english-class-book-lover.

There were plenty of writing exercises in my Creative Writing class and I remember enjoying most of them, except for one. We were given the assignment of writing about our happy places. I remember getting the rush of excitement sitting in my desk. My happy place. What could be better? I started writing in my head almost instantly.

I wrote about a warm, white sandy beach, with waves big enough to boogie board in. The water was so warm you could actually enjoy said boogie boarding without having to go numb. I live in New England. If you get in the water here you have to wait until you're numb to enjoy any aquatic activity. There was no one else on my beach, this was my happy place. I think even dolphins played in the water with me.

On the day it was due I felt like Ralphie from A Christmas Story walking up to pass in his theme. There was no way my teacher wasn't going to just love this! I mean its about someone's happy place. How could you hate it?

Apparently my teacher did. I got a C on that paper. A C! Not even a C+, a C. I'm pretty sure this was one of the first Cs I ever received on any assignment ever! I was shocked. I felt like this was one of my best pieces of work. You could feel the sun on your face and the sand under your toes just from reading about my friggin happy place! How could that not be worthy of an A?

Then I started to look at all the red marks. She crossed out so many words on my paper there were enough straight lines to make it look like it coded. In her summary at the end she felt my wording was too "flowery" and that most of the words I used were "unnecessary". From that day on I decided that I did not share her definition of descriptive writing.

Maybe she had a point, without acutally going back and reading the paper now its hard to say. But even to this day I find it hard to believe that paper deserved a C. All my other work was graded well and I ended up with an A in the class.

I think that class, and that one assignment in particular, really discouraged me from something I really enjoyed doing. I was always coming up with little short stories and ideas but I remember a lot of that coming to a grinding halt after that. Luckly the Literary course I took the second semester of my senior year introduced me to some wonderful books and authors. I read for the first time one of my favorite books in that class.

When I got to college I had to take another required class. My roommate talked me into taking a class called Women in Contemporary American Culture with her.

It was a class I needed to graduate and a Gen-Ed with your roommate and friend was always a great idea!

It ended up being one of my favs. And I love guy reactions to the name of this course. Every one of them comes to the conclusion that its a feminist class. I can assure you there was no bra burning or marching around the room shaking our fists and shouting Votes For Women!

This class was one step away from a book club. We would read short stories and books that were all gynocentric (writen by women and women were the main characters). We also looked at a lot of examples of women in pop culture. My final was a group project with my roommate about Sex and the City!

After each book or short story we would read we would be required to write about it. What we liked, what we disliked and how it made us feel. We usually had to turn in a 3 page paper once a week. A lot like my days in 9^th grade english except I didn't get cart blanche to write whatever I wanted and someone was most definitely reading and grading it but it was free from anything overly structured.

About half way through the semester the professor stopped me on my way out of the classroom just to tell me that she though I wrote beautifully and that she enjoyed reading my papers every week. I'm pretty sure I floated back to my apartment after this statement.

It wasn't until years later, when I decided I was going to try my hand at writing, that I even remembered most of this. But thinking back on it now, I still get a warmy fuzzy feeling from that compliment.

When I first started talking about writing I got a lot of fantasic encouragement from my family, friends, and most of all my husband. But I still felt like I wouldn't be able to do it.  The C on my overly flowery happy place came back to taunt me.  If I couldn't even write about my happy place what made me think I could do it for a whole book? 

It wasn't until I started to remember that this wouldn't be my first adventure into fiction. I had been doing it for a long time.  I had highs and I had lows, I couldn't let the one bad thing I remember about writing discourage me from all the other times I thought I did well.  I sure couldn't let keep me from trying something that is almost becoming necessary just to silence the characters in my head.

If you're like me and you're even considering writing a novel, chances are you have a background story that is similar to mine.

My childhood wasn't teeming with literary masterpieces, it wasn't even teeming with literary flops. I wrote from time to time when the inspiration hit. I spent a lot of my time outside of school playing with friends and playing softball.

After all the positive feedback and encouragement I got from those around me, I didn't really feel like I could do it until I remembered things like this. My friends and family were convinced I could do it and told me so but the most effective encouragement I got was from myself. I know that sounds incredibly cliche, but there you have it. Sometimes the best encouragment is the encouragement that comes from some unexpected places.