To Be a Writer

 

Terry here with our question of the week: Did you have a favorite teacher, either as a kid or an adult, that had a major influence on you as a writer? Not a teacher, but teachers. From the ninth grade teacher, Mrs. Kelly, to my senior English teachers, to my college freshman teacher, they all give me something to spur me forward as a writer. In ninth grade, Mrs. Kelly assigned the class to write story about anything. I wrote a story based on popular folk song. When she said she had read all the stories, and that one stood out and she thought everyone would enjoy it, I knew deep down that it was my story. And it was. I got such a rush from the other students’ reactions. I knew in that moment that I’d found my passion—writing. I had stories to tell and I wanted people to read them. Before that, I used to make up stories, but it never occurred to me that I could actually write them down and have people read them. When I was a senior in high school, in our very conservative community in Texas, we had a pair of English teachers who co-taught. Unheard of. Also unheard of was what got them fired: they brought in their person library of books that were unavailable in our library and let us read at will. You want to read Lady Chatterley’s Lover? Go for it! Just bring it back. I remember being introduced to works I never would have found without them. I read Crime and Punishment and literally could not put it down. Everywhere I walked for two or three weeks, I had my nose in that book. Their expansive gift to us as readers opened my mind to what writing could be. Not that I ever achieved those lofty heights, but I knew what writing meant. The duo once assigned a story and wanted it to have a particular slant. I wrote what I pleased, a dark story of a man in a room writing by candlelight. He had a burden. That’s all I remember. When the teacher turned it back to me, he had a funny look on his face. He said I hadn’t really done the assignment, but that I was a really good writer, and that I should consider that as a profession. He couldn’t have given me a greater gift. And last, my college professor. He was a goofball. I told him I was going to major in English and I wanted to be a writer. He made a passionate plea for me to study anything but English literature. “Read that on your own,” he said. “But get some experience elsewhere. Take other classes that will expand your thinking. He not only helped me with my writing by doing that, but he set me on track to become passionate about politics. My degree is in political science, and my life has been enriched by that. Oddly, my favorite teacher was a math teacher…but that’s another story. The thing is,teachers are so important--my political self wants to know why we pay them as if it's an after-thought. We demand so much of them, and pay them so poorly. This needs to change! Teachers change people's lives. Now, off my soapbox. And back to writing.