“The sex was wonderful and satisfying. I was exhausted and spent. He rested his head on my shoulders and slept
for awhile. He woke up, and said he was
hungry. I joked “Well, you know what
they say. If you eat Chinese, you’ll be
hungry in a few hours.” It was one of
the corniest jokes I’ve made.”
That was an excerpt from a story I wrote quite some time
ago. I was going through some of my
files & stumbled across that old story.
I reread it and cringed at some of the grammar errors. I almost started to rewrite it. I also renewed acquaintances with a few
partially written stories. Some of these just have a few points and ideas while
others have a faint outline. All of them are in a state of suspended
animation. Every so often, I’ll go back
to them and add a few things here and there hoping some of them will germinate. Tending a garden
in a desert would probably be easier.
When I was in high school, almost all of my papers and essays had
comments about my writing. It needed improvement.
My teachers told me that my content was fine. But I needed to improve my writing so I could
get my points across. I ignored them thinking that things would get
better over time. I barely tolerated
English classes. Shakespeare was
boring. Thomas Hardy was mind
numbing. I knew what Waiting for Godot
felt like. Alliteration, antagonist,
plots, themes and their devious friends hounded me in every English class. The only term that I, as a pimply faced teenager, thought I knew was
climax. Sadly, in literature, climax has
a very different meaning.
During my first year of university, we all had to get tested
for our English proficiency. I yawned as
I took the test. I remember feeling
annoyed at even taking this thing. A few
days later, I received an invitation to attend remedial writing classes. This was the first of many humbling
experiences at school.
The English teacher was one of the best teachers I had. She was very different than any of the
English teachers in high school. She didn’t
make us feel ashamed. I remember a lot
of laughter and encouragement. She
taught us the basics and left it up to us to take it to the next level. I wouldn’t say my writing dramatically
improved. I did enough to pass and got
my degree. For the longest time at work,
writing was simply a chore – a means to an end.
When I started my Xanga, I slowly started to enjoy writing. Some of the early writing lessons started to
surface from the deep cavernous gaps in my brain. Synapses that have long stopped firing
started to fire again. Words were more
than tools. Hunting down the right
adjective or adverb became a small adventure.
Sentences could be reconstructed several times until it conveyed the
mood and emotion I wanted. I started to
read about writing and have a better appreciation of what it takes to write well. I feel I’ve only taken a few
steps in this long journey. Some of you
are incredibly good writers and are well along this path. You have left encouragements and tips for others like me to follow. I continue to take tiny steps on this journey and dare to
dream.
Oh, as for the first paragraph in this entry, I found that sex is an effective
way of getting people to read your blogs.
Recent Comments