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So Ya Wanna Be A Writa

I have been thinking about the early 1970's a lot lately. What prompted it and led to my writing the blog posts regarding Annie was a customer telling me something about her experiences in college in 1972. I mentioned that I was a sophomore going into my junior year in the summer of 1972. So you have a customer to thank for the most recent blogs.

The reflections continue.

At some point in the winter of the 1970-71 school year, Mrs. Kristin Hibbett, my 9th grade English teacher wrote a note at the bottom of the last page of an essay assignment that I had turned in, one that I had written free hand and in very sshort order but even so I was particularly proud of. The essay was remarkable and perhaps notable only in that it contained a one and a half page, single sentence paragraph that was, of course, a run-on sentence.

I don't know what was the longer term effect of her comment only that at the time it really pissed me off. The ensuing day in class I had a real attitude. She obviously did not respect what I had been trying to accomplish in that essay. I am not certain that I even remember what it was that I had intended to accomplish except that I thought that it was important.

Her comment could have devastated me. The source of the pronouncement was figure of authority and a teacher that I had, to that point generally liked. Afterwards I was a problem student for her. I was argumentive and disruptive. She even sent me to the office a few times, once over my right to pronounce my name the way that I wanted to - not how she thought was correct.

Yeah, I am serious. She told me that I was mispronouncing my name. My name has gotten me into a lot of trouble - that is another subject for another blog post.

On that date long ago, in the '70-'71 school year it was the opinion of Mrs. Kristin Hibbett that I would never be a writer. Had she never told me that I might have never pursued becoming a writer with such focus and dedication. I might have had a lot more fun during college. I might have never developed the warped perception that I have. She did not inspire me so much as she cursed me. I would thank her but somehow that doesn't seem appropriate.

You might think that after her summary pronouncment I set out to prove her wrong; maybe so. You might also think that I hated her; I did not. In time we developed a rare and enduring friendship that unfortunately did not survive long enough that I even know what ever became of her. We corresponded frequently throughout college. I even went to see her when I last visited relatives in Ohio. That was before I departed for military service in Asia.

She knew that I was writing a novel, that I had even finished something that was of novel length in rough draft. In the letters that I was writing to her she was seeing the process of my becoming a writer. She read the multi-paged, typewritten documents that chronicled in some detail what I was doing at college. Maybe she kept them. I would not be surprised. Personally I would have burned them. It is possible that they still exist somewhere. I told her a lot of very deeply personal things about my relationships during college, for example. Some of that might still be of interest to me for some historical reasons but I also think it would be embarassing if it were to ever be made public. That kind of stuff exists somewhere, folks. If Mrs. Hibbett kept those letters, then there is a historical record of my development as a writer and many of my private travails in romance.

It is probably just as well that I lost touch with Mrs. Hibbett when I was in Asia. I was otherwise occupied; usually just staying alive and doing things that I still cannot talk about. Once again I will say that makes it sound a lot more mysterious than it was. My life in Asia was a lot of fun, a lot of pressure and a lot of tedium and boredom between moments of intense and sometimes life-threatening panic.

For all my effort in college, on the basis of my experiences alone I probably would have never become a writer. Recall that I experienced the melt-down about being a writer in 1981 and I threw away my journals and almost all of my writings. Although I played at writing for another year or two while I was living In Dundedin, FL, I really did not write much of anything at all. I was just living, obsessed with being fit, slim, maintaining my weight at around 180, while toning up my muscles and running longer and longer distances.

Perhaps it is ironic that the experiences of that period of my life figured somewhat prominently in my first novel, even if a good bit of it was fabricated and fantasy regarding a really cute blonde that I met in a bar the night that a heavy-set hair dresser was trying to prime me for a romantic interlude on my sofa.

It is just as well that things have happened as they have. I am here after all and I am writing, still.

E

posted by Unknown @ 11:23 PM