Colorado

Being a high school student in the UK is very different from the American experience, I can say with confidence. Apart from our archaic requirements of uniforms and umbrellas (because monsoon season runs all year), there's also the mood. I am not writing from experience of attending an American high school, but this starts because I grew up on American TV shows. Ask any British kid growing up in the 90s, the first accent you learn to replicate is the American one thanks to the likes of Melissa Joan Hart, the Mowry Twins and The Midnight Society.

The idea of going to school in my own clothes, having 8-minutes of locker-time at midday and watching my classmates transform into fully trained gymnasts and athletes was beyond fascinating and completely removed from what I'd come to know living in a bleak industrial town in Merseyside. The mood, for us, was always predictable. My hometown was a landscape devoid of sunlight and vibrant spots like Central Perk or The Slicery. If it wasn't raining, kids would hang around street corners in terrifying groups or burn down the swings in local parks. If something's good, wreck it, was the general attitude. And the best thing you left my school with was not a scholarship, but an invitation to stay another 2 years (no, thanks!)

It was February 2003, my final year of school. (Due to our very British preference for understatement, we don't graduate. We simply leave.) So the prospect of leaving, future aspirations and exam-pressure loomed large at this point

I was handed back an essay I had submitted the previous year. It was the Original Writing essay.

"You can do better. Give me something new in two weeks." Mr C, my English teacher told me. (The teacher I have since been unable to find. I owe Mr C a hamper of thanks today.)

I took one glance at the essay and shuddered - I'd already changed so much since handing that in. Not only as a person, but as a writer. An idea struck me as I stuffed the insipid essay into my satchel - an idea that tickled in my stomach and my inner voice told me to be bold and to "do it."

You see, two weeks earlier, I began writing a story, hunched over my desk scribbling until midnight in a pink notebook my friend had bought me. No particular hopes or plans for it. Just ideas I needed to make real rather than letting them fade. It was the result of a proper urge to write, to sever the reigns of discipline I'd grown so conditioned by at school. Academic style, word count, subject matter - did not apply. This was mine. My story to create with my characters and my rules - all of which I was allowed to break any time (so there!). I'd been unleashed into the cave of wonders. It was all MINE to take! It had never occurred to me that writing could happen like this. Nobody was there to say I'd get in trouble. I was, in a word; Inspired.

I took all my current obsessions; American culture, mood, sad stories, free-spirited runaways, the (then) controversy of homosexuality, the passage of time, family feuds, failed love affairs, suicide and finally, the sixties (mostly atypical for a 15-year-old in 2003).

The latter of these obsessions was generated while working as a Saturday boy in the local hair salon. Surrounded by ladies of all ages in a pageant of cigarette smoke, bursts of hairspray, the warm exhaling of hairdryers, mounds of chopped hair swept into corners, bleach, foils, rollers and perm lotion, I picked up many references from the older regulars. Beehives, back-combing, tight skirts, husbands who were then gorgeous, orange floral duvets, expired laws and Beatles records formed a solid vision board. One I'd enjoy describing and sculpting authentic-sounding references to.

Looking back, I'd followed Mark Twain's advice; to write what I know. And having obsessions allows you to know something very well indeed. So I threw together my every obsession and shook them up like a martini. Out poured a story of the Morgans;

A dysfunctional family in post-war Colorado. Abandoned by her husband, Brenda Morgan drinks, chain smokes and cries to Carole King records. Preoccupied in her melancholic state, Brenda goes out in search for him but ends up at her sister's in the next state. Meanwhile, the lives of her children unfold. 22-year-old Alex discovers two things; he's fallen out of love with recreational drug use, and his girlfriend is pregnant. 18-year-old Brandi plans to run away with this secret boyfriend, Taylor, after they're discovered by Taylor's father. 16-year-old Hayley is in love with her teacher and desperate to be thin.

Sorry - it gets worse; Alex abandons his girlfriend, enlists in the army and finds himself in Vietnam. Taylor turns out to be an abusive thief who beats Brandi up in a motel before fleeing the police. Hayley takes an overdose in the throes of hormonal depression and dies. (I was very unhappy myself to have written something this Plath-esque.)

"I'm going to submit this as my rewrite."

The timing was too good. I'd completed my homework before knowing I even had any!

I arrived home that evening and parked myself in front of the family computer (one device was sufficient then).

I typed and edited with such gusto, I was still awake in my school uniform at 1.30am. A 28-page, stapled Original Writing resubmission was placed on Mr C's desk on a Wednesday afternoon. (The assignment didn't need to be more than 500-words, so his amazed frown was justified.)

The best bit was Thursday morning when a girl from my English class came and asked if I could leave morning registration to meet with Mr C briefly. My stomach wasn't tickling now! I wanted to throw up with fear. "I'm in so much trouble." My mind screamed as I walked with dread to Mr C's room. "It was too personal. It's inappropriate. What if they show my parents?! What if I get expelled?" I had the driest mouth by the time I got to Mr C's classroom.

He was covering registration for a sixth form class and took me aside. I couldn't make eye contact as I prepared for a verbal beating.

"That was exceptional." He whispered. "I think you should try and get that published."

I looked up with complete amazement. "Oh."

"You have a gift there. Do not waste it. I am so impressed."

And that was the start of my biggest obsession of all.

Wherever you are, Mr C. Thank you.