Pen, Paper, and a Magnifying Glass

 

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My writing story is, as many are, unique. It contains not just the writings, but also the influencers that no one else’s does. That is, to me, what makes someone’s writing what it is and how it is something writers come to treasure…like a well worn quilt or a treasured memory that is distinct to them.

No one shared a love of writing with me excepting one person and one person only and that was my grandfather. E.G. Butler loved to write and used it to express opinion more than he did to share joy through storytelling; though he did both. I remember him as a strongly opinionated man who was quiet, yet inquisitive and nosy. It served him well in the many positions he filled over the course and growth of his own writing story.

I didn’t know I liked writing until I was about 11 years old and I started writing short rhymes in notebooks that are now tucked in a box full of other drawings and elementary works of fiction. Nobody saw them, I did not care if they did or did not and thought nothing of my newfound hobby

My grandmother noticed before she passed away when I was 13. She was given a poem my mother had read of mine and proudly shared it with coworkers. She always had encouraged me to publish my poems in a magazine, even as a preteen, and I always discounted her encouragement as grandmotherly and endearing. She passed away when I was 13 and those memories faded into the background as I finished out middle school.

As a 9^th grade student, I had been journaling for a while and continued writing some poetry that still never made it far beyond my reach. At this point, I shared it on my blog that had very few readers. So really, the online space gave me a space to save my work without public scrutiny. I hated the thought of someone evaluating my work and criticizing it.

Looking back at the first few argumentative essays I’ve ever written from 9^th grade American history, I could perform a painful criticism procedure on my writing that I would have balked at. I was not to the point in my life yet where I valued what criticism could do for my writing.

Having been home educated through 9^th grade, it was only my mother (my parents are both educators) who saw these essays and recognized something in them. In a leap of faith, I tried to take her advice and share my writing with my Grandfather.

As a young teenager, you think you’re invincible in your craft until the writer you know and idolize looks at you and says “good writing is always 10% inspiration and 90% editing”. I was flabbergasted because I knew how to infer well enough to know what he meant. My heart was there, but I lacked structure.

With this in mind, my parents encouraged me to dual enroll and get my Associates degree in English and writing during my last two years of high school. One of the instructors that I remember as one of the most encouraging was a first year professor who was, at the time, 27 years old. It was that professor and my grandfather that kept my writer’s vision balanced with inspiration and editing skills. Even my grandfather gave me his college writing books on editing professional writing from the 1940’s which I still treasure in my small private library.

I took a gap year after high school and taught music for a year and half until I felt the need to return to school and finish a BA. It was in my music room in the studio that I got the congratulatory email from Clayton State University and I knew I was well on my way towards year 3.

I wanted to work in a field in keeping with my degree choice so I took a job as a part time news staff writer for our local newspaper. Ironically, I can see the same office from where I sit across the street at our library.

If you want to get knocked around, be an introvert with no professional writing experience and start working for a small town newspaper. Southern small towns are brutal in their review and I learned a few lessons there that made me realize that double-checking and proofreading work were like bread and butter in the writing industry. My Grandfather had been right with his assessment of both me and writing and I knew it. I grew not only more confident with a pen, but in how I approached others and sought to get solid information that informed professional writing fit for public scrutiny. I also learned to like scrutiny and I look back as a teacher now and see how some meant no ill or forced an opinion on me as they sought to guide my approach and style in different writing formats. They gave me the gift of criticism.

I spent some time there, but I left due to heavy course requirements and the need to take a six class load one semester. Fast forward to 2021.

However, nothing prepared me for the love of the written word than did teaching. THAT was never something I thought I would do. It’s the same adage we have all heard before. “Just because my parents are educators does not mean I have to be because I write!” My father being the headstrong administrator that he was gave me every logical reason why I shouldn’t pass up the opportunity.

So I started year 1 in kindergarten and worked there as a social studies teacher for the first half of the year. I struggled immensely with classroom management, so I thought my well-thought out lessons complete with writing practice for 5-6 year old kids were fruitless…until I met an immigrant Mayan student that joined my class which had 5 other ESOL students. Our ESOL teacher and I were intrigued and worked closely together to unpack this child that not only did not speak English but spoke a Mayan dialect which is very different from Spanish. Our best approach? Look and write. Pictures and written one-word responses helped the visual-language association and we watched this student slowly form words.

During the second part of year 1, I taught reading intervention for first graders on our tier 3 intervention list. One little girl had significant behavior problems in the classroom resulting in little academic progression. After month 1, I still could not get her to write short sentences that went along with our curriculum. She continued to struggle, and after a while, a student a little older but academically behind joined my groups. Student #1 could not write letters correctly enough to form 3 letter words. Student #2 couldn’t write but a few select letters of the alphabet.

Persistence was key. Erasing was better. Modeling was intense. I did not think I was going to win. But one day, student #1 came in and wrote a full sentence on her white board and passed her third reading test qualifying her to move up an instructional reading level. Student #2 wrote her name and began to conquer sight words. They were wobbly, but I could read everything these students wrote on their boards. Their favorite moments were when I gave them the freedom to write whatever was in their head resulting in not a little laughter. J

There are other stories I could share. So many small and big moments of victory.

Why do I put all this in my own writing story?

Because all of these milestones taught me lessons, this last one was the most clear to me. Writing is ideas. It has to have desire. We have to be ok with erasing more often than we don’t. We have to watch others then do as they do before we make our rough draft mistakes. We will still make mistakes, but not as many.

Writing is a journey and sometimes we don’t end up where we set out to be but where we need to be and where our skills are developed best by pouring them out for others and into others.