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The Creativity of the Author 4/2/2014 10:29:49 AM
In first grade, the teacher had us write a short story using the tools she had just taught us through the first quarter of the school year. Part of her lesson was proper spelling, proper sentences with article, noun, verb, and use of proper noun. Also our writing was in cursive and we had to correctly place our letters in the lines provide on the paper. Capital letters tall and lower case letters below the dotted line.
I wrote something like six lines describing visiting a friend and received and A+ for my paper.
In third grade, the assignment was to write a commercial. I received and Excellent A! for the assignment. That was a fun one. Mother saved my work, and I still have it today. My commercial sold "Crummy Hot Dogs', with a secret ingredient making them puff up---oatmeal!
Book reports were a regular necessity and I peeled those off easily. Since I read everything I could get my hands on, I could do a book report effortlessly.
Because of my devouring of books, it was difficult to keep me in new material. I was way ahead of my reading level and I would pick up another book as soon as I set one down. In the sixth grade, I took one of Father's 'adult' books to school which earned me a trip to the Principal's office and a note home to Mother.
Mother said, "I know you can read it, just don't take anything like that to school."
In seventh grade, we were introduced to plays and I wrote two plays, one titled The Ghost of Bull Run about a dead Confederate soldier and the other titled Fear of Flying about a man who overcomes his phobia only to die in a plane crash. Pretty heavy stuff for a seventh grader.
In Seventh grade History, I did a essay on Robert E. Lee with Footnotes which gained me another Excellent A+. Another assignment was a paper on the Louisiana Purchase.
Seventh grade English had us writing vignettes from viewing photographs. The teacher would show us a photo and we had to write a story on the spot from what we saw. I remember personifying a shack, writing a sad tale of woe and loneliness from the old building's point of view. Mine was the story read to the class as the prize study.
In eighth grade English I write a short story that was published in the school newspaper as a serial. Unfortunately, half of it made it to print as only one paper was published. Everyone had to come to me for the ending. Which was fine. For a short time I was popular.
Eighth grade English also had us writing fictional and non fictional stories, and again I was top of the class. My non-fiction piece about a canoe trip with my brother was read to the class by the teacher.
In ninth grade, I don't remember writing assignments but I was writing stories on my own. Mother had a huge old typewriter that you had to pound the keys to write. I blistered my fingers banging on that thing. My English teacher would read and edit my tales for me, encouraging me to continue writing, even to sending her stuff during the summer when school was out.
That early discovery of the world of creativity took hold of me like a leach. I wrote poetry, short stories, essays and plays. I tried my first novel when I was fifteen about a boy who was kidnapped by his own parents and held for ransom. I think I filled two 5-subject notebooks with longhand penciled script though I never finished it.
I filled notebooks with character studies and plot ideas. I did treatments on my favorite TV shows and movies. If I wasn't writing, I was reading.
I tried to get published but hadn't a clue as to how to do it. I would send my work away to addresses and it would come back undeliverable while other times it would just disappear. Letters to authors were never answered. Entries to writing contests never won even a recognition.
I didn't know about query letters, proposals, or agents.
Slowly, over the years, I have studied the correct way to do things. There are things writers have to do to get anywhere. There are protocols to keep and ways to approach editors, agents, and publishers.
There are nuances of plots, and subplots. Good stories are mixtures of poetry, prose and dialogue. The joy of word usage, slang, jargon, phrases, cliches, and the insertion of foreign languages. I learned genres and story lengths. I collect dictionaries and thesauruses. From a pencil and notebook, I've grown with the technology. And though I'm more selective of my authors and subjects, I still read.
In all my years of writing, I have most enjoyed the creating process and I suppose every author would admit the same.
Despite the setbacks, returns, rejections, and wishful thinking, I have never grown tired of the writing.
