Evolution of a Writer

All my life, I’ve told stories in some way. Before I could hold a crayon, I made up stories and told them in spoken form. Before I learned how to write, I told stories by drawing pictures. The earliest story I remember “writing” was at age four. It was about a little girl who got sent to timeout because she wouldn’t take a nap, told in a series of pictures because I didn’t know how to spell the words I wanted to use. Another story from around the same time was about a dog who got a tummy ache from eating trash. These early stories were simple, inspired by real-life experiences, and not particularly noteworthy. That would come later.

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My first story that received any recognition was for an assignment in the third grade. The assignment was a school-wide project: make and write your own book. Three winners would be chosen from each classroom. The classroom winners would go on to compete at the grade level, of which one story from each grade would be chosen to represent the school in a regional competition. But before writing anything, each student had to make the book which would hold their story.

While I enjoyed art class, this project involved two of my least favorite things: materials brought from home and specific directions which didn’t allow for much creativity. Each student was required to bring a piece of cloth cut to specific dimensions (I no longer recall what they were) which would be the book cover. Not only was my family low-income, I waited until the last minute to tell my mom I needed cloth, so I was stuck with whatever she could find around the house. It was a black cloth with an ugly pink and metallic silver flower print.

I hated the art project almost as much as I hated that cloth! The book-making process involved sticking two pieces of pre-cut cardboard together with masking tape, covering the cardboard with cloth and gluing it in place, and attaching a softcover notebook to the inside of the cardboard. It might’ve been fun, had it not been for the teacher’s exacting standards. The masking tape had to be placed just so. The cloth had to be perfectly centered and placed with just the right amount overlapping the cardboard. Instead of letting the students pick their notebooks, the teacher randomly handed them out. Mine was an ugly yellow color that clashed with the cloth cover. Every part of the project had to be done a certain way, and any innocent deviation would be met with a reprimand for “not following directions”.

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Soon I had the book, but I needed a story. Some kids might write a story about a flower garden to match the book’s cover, but I couldn’t think of anything to write about flowers. I couldn’t think of anything to write at all! So I sat, staring at the blank page in front of me, panicking as the minutes ticked by. Then the teacher looked over and snapped, "Get to work!"

She didn't get it. I wasn't trying to cause trouble or shirk the assignment; I was drawing a blank. In my humiliation over being scolded in front of everybody, I thought, I hate school! Then inspiration struck me. That was it! I'd write a story about a kid who had a terrible day at school. Not just any terrible day, the worst day ever!

Now I had a title for my story. I just needed to think of a plot, so I thought of all the bad things that could happen to a kid at school. Some were realistic, like missing the bus or forgetting one's homework. Some were silly, like being teased for walking too slow in the hall or having to wear an itchy coat because it was cold. Some were (to a third grader, at least) scary, like failing a test or having to write sentences as punishment for something. Some of the scenarios I came up with were made up. Others were inspired by something I saw on TV, and others were things that actually happened to me… just not all on the same day!

After brainstorming how much could go wrong in one day of school, I had a basic plot. The story was called The Worst School Day Ever!, and it was about a little girl who had - you guessed it - the worst day at school. The story was painstakingly handwritten in the little cloth and cardboard-bound book I made in art class, with each page needing the teacher’s approval before moving on to the next. After several days and hand cramps from hours of writing and drawing illustrations, I had half the story done.

As I read over what I’d written, I realized that I didn’t want the story to end on a negative note. I decided that the girl’s bad day should turn into a good one instead. The story’s turning point would be the girl coming back to class after lunch to learn she’d aced a difficult math test. She’d go on to make a new friend at recess, and the story would end with the girl taking the bus home. When I was done, I didn’t think the story I’d written was very good - certainly not good enough to win anything - but I was proud of myself for finishing it.

The books had to be turned in before the Christmas break, during which time they would be judged and narrowed down to the winners. First thing on the first day of the new year, the principal read the schoolwide winners’ names during the morning announcements. I was not the least bit surprised when my name wasn’t one of them! I didn’t think any more of the little book I’d written until later that day when the teacher handed the books back to their respective owners. She said we were going to read our books aloud to the class, starting with the three classroom winners. Imagine my surprise when my name was the first one called!

So that day after lunch, I read The Worst School Day Ever! aloud to the class. I was so nervous! I had no idea how they would react, but as I looked out, I saw several smiling faces. People laughed at the funny parts, and when I was finished reading, there was a round of applause. I was surprised, surprised that I made it that far in the contest, surprised that the class liked what I’d written, but most of all, surprised to realize that writing was actually fun!

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That story planted a seed that would sprout into a love of writing. Over the years, I honed my craft. The plots got more complex, the characters more developed, the sentence structure more varied, and the vocabulary more sophisticated. Through it all, one thing remained the same; my writing didn’t shy away from the darker parts of life. My writing won me more awards in school, including a ribbon for a drug awareness essay in fifth grade, the highest score in the whole school on a writing assessment in seventh grade, and a trophy in high school. The accolades petered out once I hit adulthood, but the fun remained. Even if I never win anything else, even if I never earn a single penny for it, I’ll keep writing in hopes that my stories will help other discover the joys of the written word as I once did.